Virgin Airlines lets Boing Boing users name a plane

Another fun sponsorship opportunity harnessing social media sites: Virgin Airlines held a name our planes contest for their soon-to-be-launched US airline (which will have a major hub in San Francisco, btw)

One of the planes was up for grabs by readers of the popular blog, Boing Boing. The winner? Unicorn Chaser. Makes a little more sense when you read the comment on the Boing Boing blog. Another unconventional sponsorship idea from Federated Media.

I don't know if this is already obvious information, but the name "Unicorn Chaser" is also appropriate for an airline called "Virgin" because of traditional medieval beliefs about unicorns--that they could only be caught or tamed by a virgin. Wikipedia mentions this in the article on unicorns: Link.

I don't know if their are a lot of art majors who read boing boing, but that's the sort of thing that's useful to know for art history.

Chas notes reports that it had its own Wikipedia mention under the Boing Boing entry within an hour of the results being announced.