A Lesson In Buzz: Would You Have The Courage To Buy A Billboard For A Non-Existent Airline?

Thanks to KMPS, Seattle, afternoon guy Tony Thomas for pointing me to this post on buzz marketing in Portland, OR, for the TV show "Lost."

As you can see, it's a billboard advertising Oceanic Air, which is the fictional airline in the series. The billboard includes the website FlyOceanicAir. Of course, I checked out the website and it is for Oceanic, but it appears to have been hijacked by a possible new character for the next season. There's a video message from a guy named 'Sam' who says he is looking for Sonya, a flight attendant who he also calls his "partner".

Sam's video has flashes of another website, Find815, which is Sam's personal effort to keep searching for flight 815, the Oceanic flight which crash landed on the island and started this whole fiasco. That website has a little challenge for fans-- to find the differences in two pictures of Sonya. It's pretty obvious, but I'll let you check it out without spoiling things.While I thoroughly enjoy wacky marketing like this, I imagine that a lot of drivers in Portland fully believe there's a new airline that wants them to fly to Seoul, South Korea.