Russia’s abysmal track record for gay rights got unnecessarily worse last year, when a court ruling banned gay parades in the country for the next 100 years. Today, Stockholm Pride and M&C Saatchi Stockholm are fighting back with gowest2013.com, a digital campaign that lets Russians celebrate gay rights on Twitter for one well-intentioned thorn in the side of the Russian government: to get “Go West” trending in Russia. How are they going to accomplish this from a Swedish website, you ask? All tweets from the website automatically change location to a Russian city. Got to love technology.

If Stockholm Pride accomplishes their goal, I’d love to see the faces of Russian government officials after “Go West” starts trending. Stalin rolls in his grave, Putin rolls in his bed, Sting makes more music videos like this. If you’re interested in contributing, you can tweet from the website to help the cause and watch as Princeton, New Jersey turns into Ufa, Russia.

“Jenny and the Chicken,” a Mash+Studio slideshow illustrated by Danny Mcclain, is one of those metaphorical stories that lets you know it’s metaphorical halfway through the narrative. A boy named Brand wants to befriend a a girl named Jenny, but he can’t figure out how to make her like him. He tries all of the usual friendly activities, like connecting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., but Jenny doesn’t seem interested in a guy who talks about himself all the time. Remember, his name is Brand. Get it?

This type of wink-wink story is typically not as clever as its creators think it is. Anthropomorphic chickens aside, engaging with consumers effectively is a lot more complicated than showing how a brand sees the world. I’m not sure who Mash plans to target with this slideshow, which is partly why it feels disjointed, but unless they start teaching brand equity to second graders, you might want to turn the page.

Yep, it’s basically just as silly as it sounds. From what we’ve been told, this campaign from Detroit’s own Campbell-Ewald has been years in the making and concerns two adult peregrine falcons, which currently have three nest eggs about to hatch on the roof of the agency’s current Warren, MI headquarters. The campaign’s origins date back several years when C-E employee Paul Lenney (who serves as property manager) decided to construct and install a nest box on the agency’s rooftop in the hopes that a pair would land and ultimately reside up top.

Well, it took nearly a decade, and Campbell-Ewald has decided to celebrate this auspicious event (we think) with a web-based onslaught led by group digital CD Iain Lanivich that includes a Tumblr site, livestream footage, a birthdate pool, the Twitter hashtag #CEfalcons and even a meme generator (thanks for the personalized pic). Too bad we’re just stuck with a multitude of less-exotic pigeons here in NYC.

Today, the social network has unveiled the winners of its second annual Facebook Studio Awards, which honors the ad industry and its various socially inclined campaigns from the last year. Among those making the grade this year, as chosen by a jury that included familiar names from the biz such as Colleen DeCourcy, Nick Law, Jeff Benjamin, Tor Myhren and Rob Reilly, are Draftfcb and 360i, which earned the top Blue Award for their “Daily Twist” work for Oreo. Other winners include R/GA, which made the list twice, once for Nike work and the other for the intriguing “One Copy Song”Facebook app the agency developed for Swedish rapper, Adam Tensta, a year ago (it’s also up for a Webby this year).

Now that Creature has offered its twist on window shopping during the holidays, the Seattle-based agency returns with another outdoor effort of sorts, which it’s dubbing “You Were Here.” Celebrating the clash between “vanity and voyeurism,” the shop has adorned its storefront window with what seems to be a two-way mirror not unlike one you’d see in any interrogation during a cop drama. Well, just as you’d imagine, Creature’s eyes are on you as well and by using two laptop-controlled cameras complete with motion-sensing programs, the agency captures the various passersby and posts the images to a Tumblr site.

As Creature explains, the goal of “You Were Here” is to not only gain attention from pedestrians, but play up the fact that many of those wandering by have no idea what the hell the agency does. We’re not sure if this somewhat invasive, but fun effort makes it any clearer, but enjoy the show if you’re in the neighborhood while it lasts.

A few folks from Cali-based 72andSunny led by strategist Mike Jacobson are trying to show their support and give something back to some of Boston’s finest who first responded to last week’s marathon bombings with an effort called “This One’s On Us.”

With the help of online fundraising site gofundme, the 72 crew tells us, “We’re partnering with EatBoston to give gift cards from Boston’s restaurants and bars to the men and women who put their lives on the line for the city they love, and to help us all feel safe again.” The monetary goal is $10,000 with all proceeds going to those who responded and as of now, a few hundred dollars have been raised in two days. If you’d care to donate and help out, go here for more info.

Ladies and gents, meet Virginia Alber-Glanstaetten, group director of planning at Huge who picks up the baton from Josh Seifert on monthly writing duties. In her debut column on this here site, Alber-Glanstaetten, who’s also worked on the strategy side at Organic and Razorfish during her career, shares her thoughts on Facebook’s new emoticons feature.

I’ve never been a fan of the emoticon. Perhaps it’s generational – or my own form of language snobbery and elitism – but whenever I see grownups using smiley faces in a sentence I just want to issue the common parental command “use your words.” So you can imagine my feelings about the news that Facebook has added emoticons to its arsenal of self-expression.

Not only does it add to the injustices inflicted upon the English language of late, but I believe it actually pushes Facebook further away from its stated intent of connecting people. Over the last few years, Facebook has succeeded in commoditizing our relationships with each other – remember when you used to visit your friends after they had kids rather than leaving it at a Like and a comment on their photo album?

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We’ll spare you the preamble and just let you read this piece sent to us from Heidi Modarelli-Frank, VP, client social strategy at Cleveland-based agency, Marcus Thomas.

The world has learned to turn to social media when tragedies unfold. Whether it’s a school shooting, a hurricane or the senseless bombing of the Boston Marathon earlier this week, we’ve learned to turn to social media within the immediate hours of the event for news and information.

We want facts. We want to know if our friends and families are okay. We want to know that WE are safe. If we are directly affected by the tragedy, social media can play a critical role in helping us learn where to go, where to get help.

But I can assure you, as the facts are unfolding, we don’t want or need to hear from brands that have nothing to do with the tragedy. I don’t need to know that may favorite ice cream brand’s hearts are with the victims when I don’t even know how many victims there are, or if someone I know is a part of it.

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Fresh off of its April Fools stunt, Toronto agency Grip Limited once again lands on our radar with this effort for client, Pizza Hut Canada, in which said shop has commissioned the services of an artist (waiting on the name) to live-draw requests for the chain’s box art this afternoon. From what we’ve been told, this part of the brand’s celebration of gaining 200,000 fans of its Canadian operations on Facebook, and in the process, Grip is getting requests via comment threads on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. For some reason, those at Grip choose to go through our tips box to send us material, hence the lack of credits or any other proper attribution. You know where to reach us, gang, so please oblige.

Update: And just like that, your Grip Ltd. credits after the jump.

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We’ve been told that Chicago’s Energy BBDO is behind this rather busy, yet timely site called “God Was Here,” which comes to us a ahead of one of the holiest of days and tracks mentions of “god” on social media–mainly Twitter–seemingly in real-time. We figure this is a good way to wind down Good Friday, so feel free to click around on this silly, but somewhat intriguing entry.

Update: We’ve been told the “God Was Here” site is actually a side project from folks across multiple agencies, not just Energy BBDO.