Crowdsourced Commercials: Creative or Clueless?

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Crowdsourced Commercials: Creative or Clueless?
Ellis Booker, Journalist 2/21/2011

Crowdsourced commercials are breaking out of high-visibility, annual events like the Super Bowl. Harley Davidson recently unveiled its first crowdsourced commercial, No Cages, which plays on the freedomloving spirit of Harley riders. The ad, submitted by "passionate amateur" Whit Hiler of Kentucky, was prompted by Harley Davidson's new Boulder, Colo.-based crowdsourcing ad shop, Victor & Spoils. Not surprisingly, comments from ad industry folk on AdvertisingAge.com, which published an interview with Harley CMO Mark-Hans Richer, weren't kind: "The problem is, it looks amateur, which is bad in this case because Harley is a premium brand," said one poster, summing up many of the negative comments. Do the opinions of creative industry insiders even matter when it comes to crowdsourced execution? Let's look at the granddaddy of crowdsourced campaigns, PepsiCo's Crash the Super Bowl. The campaign, now in its fourth year, encourages entrants to write, shoot, and submit Super Bowl commercials for the Doritos brand. The 2011 Doritos spot during Super Bowl XLV, like many of the afternoon's conventionally produced commercials, featured the staple elements: pretty wife or girlfriend, harmless hubby or boyfriend, and family pet (typically a dog). In this case, the guy, behind a sliding glass door, is

seen taunting a Pug in the back yard with a treat. What treat? An open bag of Doritos. Did hilarity ensue when the pooch raced headfirst into the door? Not in this critic's house. But I wasn't a fan of the finger-lickin'-good runner-up winner, either. (The runner-up winner for Pepsi Max, "First Date," was better, I thought. This was the first year Pepsi Max joined its sibling brand, Doritos, in Crash the Super Bowl.) Was it a good idea to crowdsource these 30-second spots, which cost between $2.8 million and $3 million to air? Absolutely, if the goal was audience engagement. According to PepsiCo, this was the strongest year yet, attracting more than 5,600 creative submissions and an unprecedented level of consumer voting. Because United Nations observers didn't certify the voting in Crash the Super Bowl, we can't comment whether it was free and fair, except to say that Frito-Lay, correctly, gave viewers multiple ways to voice their opinion: People could vote through the official contest site or via smartphones, Xbox, or banner ads on select Websites. It seems to me that at least three lessons emerge from these uses of crowdsourcing: 1. Know that crowdsourcing isn't for everybody, and no sane marketer uses the tactic every time. 2. Beware positioning these creative contributions as "amateur" efforts, because they may not be. Check out Rick Mathieson's post, Confessions of a "Crash The Super Bowl" Winner in which he writes about the "myth of the consumer-created Super Bowl spot." Mathieson writes: "As I recently told National Public Radio, 'It's ironic, because the people who actually end up winning these

things are the people who could probably build careers in advertising, if they aren't already.' " 3. Recognize that like any great marketing effort, success comes to those who execute an integrated strategy, one that carefully thinks through the brand message and distribution channels. Take Crash the Super Bowl, which involved online, offline, and mobile components, and lived before, during, and after the Super Bowl. For the brand, that kind of coordinated effort takes real time and real money, even if the ad spot itself came from an unknown dude who spent just $500 producing it. Maybe that's why we haven't seen more ad agencies and their clients jump on the bandwagon. What do you think about crowdsourced ads? When are they a good idea? When are they not?

² Ellis Booker is a freelance journalist with extensive experience with business-to-business marketing.

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Summary Crowdsourced commercials are breaking out of high-visibility. But still there are lots of ad agencies which have not turned to crowdsourcing.

Description Three lessons emerge from the uses of crowdsourcing:

1. Know that crowdsourcing isn't for everybody, and no sane marketer uses the tactic every time.

2. Beware positioning these creative contributions as "amateur" efforts, because they may not be.

3. Recognize that like any great marketing effort, success comes to those who execute an integrated strategy, one that carefully thinks through the brand message and distribution channels.

Tags: advertisements, Commercials, Creative, Crowdsource, Crowdsourcing

Posted by Archenette Evangelio

Feb 23, 2011 01:24 pm GMT Viewed 1383 times

Author: Ellis Booker Source

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Richard Laurence Baron Feb 23, 2011 04:55 pm GMT

I'm thinking Ellis Booker has encapsulated the challenges and cautions successfully. That being said, the ones who add his comments to their "Best Practices" list will be in a better position to advise their clients properly.

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