Letting The Customer Create The Ads

I have been a big fan of the idea that brands should allow their customers to create advertising and submit it to them.

It's been happening here and there for a while. I recall posting about a homemade Nike commercial when Tiger Woods sunk the put at the 16th hole in the Masters, but I can't find that post to link to.

This week I was shown something called Firefox Flicks. This is a site where Firefox fans can post self-made commercials for Firefox. I think it launched last week and there are already 70 commercials up there.

There is a cool animated one called This Is Hot that showcases incredible graphics.

But this is my favorite so far.

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» User Generated Advertising … It’s Still the Product from ProfitableSignals
Customers creating advertising for products they love have been around for some time now. When George Masters created the Apple iPod video it was covered in Wired Magazine http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66001,00.html Recently, Fred Wil... [Read More]

Tracked on Apr 30, 2006 7:30:29 AM

Posted April 28, 2006 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

Nice.

Now if we can just get you to resize the QT window so it doesn't overlap other graphics (and it flickers).

Posted by: csven | Apr 28, 2006 8:00:21 AM

The Nike/Tiger commercial was created by Joseph Jaffe a good friend and the author of "The Death of the 30 Second Spot".

http://www.jaffejuice.com/2005/04/tiger_did_it_ak.html

Dave

Posted by: Dave Morgan | Apr 28, 2006 8:12:27 AM

The genius of this type of advertising is that it is viral in nature. I posted my favorite commercial on my site and my readers will be directed back to the Firefox site as I was from this blog. All of this at a minimal cost to the company. Truly brilliant.

Posted by: Don | Apr 28, 2006 8:18:20 AM

I definitely agree. I think fanmercials (can I make up words? is that legal?) are great. Sometimes they're funny, and get the message across (other times they're horrible).

Regardless, you have to think about the fiasco that GM just went through when they had their fanmercial campaign. Remember everybody ripping into the gas-guzzling SUVs?

Heather Hamilton had quite a discussion about the GM fiasco on her blog. It seems to be down ATM though... but I'm sure a quick scan through her blog would provide a link.
http://blogs.msdn.com/heatherleigh

Posted by: Adam Phillabaum | Apr 28, 2006 10:52:52 AM

This is great. It is such a creative way and fun way to drive interest and traffic to a site or brand. The creation of the advertising is viral advertising in itself.

My other favorite was the Bush in 30 Seconds campaign done by MoveOn.Org in 2004. www.bushin30seconds.org

Also, Howard Stern did a Film Festival that is also a great way to build viral womm.

Posted by: Jim Larrison | Apr 28, 2006 4:35:15 PM

Customer driven advertising is the ultimate for any company. There are not many companies that have such a loyal and rabid customer base that would "love" to make commercials for them. Now, on the other hand, there may thousands of customer that would be willing to spend a few hours "slamming" the company.

Posted by: Arnie McKinnis | Apr 28, 2006 6:50:09 PM

CNET has been running the exact same type of campaign http://yourstory.cnet.com . Of course, they run download.com and use this as a platform for you to upload your video.

Posted by: Ken Berger | Apr 29, 2006 10:46:42 AM

A VC

Musings of a VC in NYC