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BMW and the Guggenheim Foundation have cancelled plans to slot their BMW Guggenheim Lab roving urban thinktank into the Kreuzberg neighbourhood of Berlin due to fears of the project getting caught up in militant local action against gentrification of this part of the German city, writes Steve Mullins.

Benetton is gearing up to link its flagship European stores in a brand ‘conversation’ using content from a series of arts and cultural events – kicking off at the Design Museum in London with the Colors Survival Guide – to reach shoppers in London, Milan, Barcelona and Paris.

The ‘Icon Stores’ will host the projection of videos and artistic animations about the Colors London exhibition on the Benetton Live Windows, a network of large high-definition video walls, which transform traditional store windows into high-tech multimedia screens.

Angry Birds is extending the brand from digital gaming into the real world by launching a series of theme parks around the globe. First to get Angry Birds kids’ animal-themed playground rides will be the Sarkanniemi Amusement Park in Finland (home country of Angry Birds outfit Rovio).

”We wanted to create a unique themed area and associate it with a strong and well-known brand”, says Miikka Seppala, md of Sarkanniemi Adventure Park. ”The Angry Birds characters were born in Finland but known worldwide by people of all ages.”

The Guardian has launched King’s Cross Streetstories. What it it? It’s a mobile app which delivers tales to users as they walk through the streets of London’s King’s Cross (the newspaper’s UK offices are in the Kings Place development in the area). Powered by GPS, the app delivers up to 70 stories.

This year, Fallon Festival 2012 is saluting Shift. What is it? Well, it’s all about cultural, social, technological or environmental changes to our world, and about the agency “seeking to stay across the major shifts in business and society, in order to keep our work relevant and impactful,” according to Gail Gallie, CEO of Fallon London.

Hyundai clearly believes brands can be absolutely mesmerising. So the car maker wants to create the experience of driving its i30 by hypnotising consumers online.

During SXSW, Nokia planted a worthy 44,000 trees in Texas – after a bad year of wildfires in the state – thanks to the mobile brand’s #ijustplantedatree campaign, writes Maria Stadtmueller.

“During our time at the Interactive portion of SXSW, we invited 50 of our favourite Twitter friends to help us out in our mission,” the brand says prior to the event. “They will take part in a 48-hour online Twitter challenge using the hashtag #ijustplantedatree.

Intel clearly has a case of iPad3 envy and has come over all Apple for its Ultrabook. “People are drawn to Ultrabooks,” says Claudine Pache, digital marketing manager for Intel Australia and New Zealand. “When you see one, you just want one.”

How to tap into this consumer desire? “We created the Ultrabook Temptations [campaign] to see just how far people would go to get their hands on one,” she says.