At Sunday?s Oscars, Ric O?Barry held up a sign with the mobile call-to-action asking viewers to text the keyword DOLPHIN to the short code 44144 during ?The Cove? acceptance speech for Best Documentary. 

Waterfall Mobile powered the mobile campaign for Participant Media, and after the sign aired on television, the company noticed a spike in mobile subscribers to the keyword, with steady traffic for the next five hours. After airing on TV, there has been a huge show of support over Twitter, which is continuing to generate steady traffic to the keyword with people texting in to sign the petition. 

?The success of The Cove's mobile campaign further validates how mobile allows brands to connect with subscribers on the go," said Matt Silk, senior vice president of Waterfall Mobile.  "It proves that by incorporating mobile calls-to-action in your marketing plans you can easily engage people and connect with them.?  
 
?It was fantastic for our industry when mobile messaging was displayed during a global broadcast event like the Oscars - more and more brands will realize that mobile is no longer an experimental medium and is a must have," he said. 

New subscribers are still coming in at a healthy pace and the Twittersphere is continuing to show ?The Cove? a lot of support. 

Before the Oscar broadcast, the campaign had around 38,000 subscribers and as of Sunday night after the Oscars it had around 71,000. 

Here is what the message looks like:

This is the landing page for the link in the SMS promotion:

Ellen Degeneres tweeted the short code yesterday afternoon, which has set off a new round of tweeting. 

Waterfall expects the numbers to continue to grow.

The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O?Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was Mr. O?Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international TV sensation ?Flipper.?

But his close relationship with those dolphins led Mr. O?Barry to a radical change of heart.

One day, he came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures so beautifully adapted to life in the open ocean must never be subjected to human captivity again.

This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast.

Undeterred, O?Barry joins forces with filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Ocean Preservation Society to get to the truth of what?s really going on in the cove in Taiji and why it matters to everyone in the world.

At the Oscars on Sunday, as soon as he got on stage, co-director Fisher Stevens rattled off the obligatory thank-yous then included, ?My hero, Ric O?Barry, who is not only a hero to this species but to all species.?

That is when Mr. O?Barry unfurled a small, plain, black-and-white banner reading, Text DOLPHIN to 44144.

Here is a picture of Mr. O?Barry at the Oscars that night:

That was enough to get the Oscar censors? attention. Before the other co-director, Louie Psihoyos, could get in more than his own single thank you, the camera cut to the audience and then the orchestra started in on its ?exit-the-stage-now? theme.

?Mobile is uniquely suited to rallying like-minded people behind a cause, and I think you see the power of that with the excitement and enthusiasm surrounding this campaign for The Cove," Mr. Silk said.