As mascots go, I wouldn't have picked a cowducken. But that's what IBM is using to sell its Lotus Notes software. A marketing campaign with the slogan "Create Simplicity" lets you mix and match animal parts as a metaphor for its all-in-one office software. The unwieldy chimeras make me think of a hideous mound of software with poorly matched parts — probably not what IBM was going for.

Contact information for this author is not available.