• The New York Times, Wednesday, January 10, 2007 12:45 PM

Recent films starring penguins have turned the darling creatures into Madison Avenue's new "pitchbeast of choice."

Build-A-Bear Workshop, Burger King, Roche Laboratories and General Mills signed on early for "Happy Feet," which opened in November. A clear difference from 2005, when no one tied in with "March of the Penguins" because no one expected it to become the docu-hit it is.

Why penguins? "None of us wants to feel we're just another penguin in a sea of penguins," said Michael Megalli, a partner at Group 1066, a corporate-identity consulting company in New York, so a penguin that strikes out on his own can be used to tell an appealing story.

That was the case in a Coca-Cola Classic commercial, by Berlin Cameron United, that teams the brand's familiar polar bear characters with a colony of penguins. The spot was introduced for the 2005 holiday season and was brought back for 2006.

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