User Submitted Content, The Debate.

Everyone is doing it these days. Companies are letting Joe public throw their hat into the advertising ring for their favorite brands. Its a good idea. It creates a two way street of conversation between the product and brand. It also gets people who are passionate about the product a platform to get their message out there. And lets face it sometimes actual consumers know more about the product than the company itself.

Doritos did it famously for the last Super Bowl. User submitted commercials were aired during the most expensive air time on earth. Were they polished, on target, message specific, funny, entertaining commercials we expect when we turn on the TV?

No.

They were terrible.

See below:



It seems so easy to do this when you're 5 beers deep looking at the Head On ads but the reality is that its not.

Doritos little user submitted adventure did nothing but five minutes of fame for the people who made them. No increased sales. No market gain. Failure. However they didn't learn their lesson. Nope. Doritos is the One Show sponsor. What better way to follow up horrible commercials made by people with no experience than to ask people with little experience to do work for you.

Don't get me wrong, ill be working on Doritos One Show along with everyone else, but if I was the CMO of Doritos I would be looking through Craigslist ads for new jobs. Leave the job to the professionals. Cheers on endorsing Colbert for President though. That was a great move.

There is a better way to do this experiement, Apple and Red Bull with their great marketing machines are taking the lead. They take work that's good, polish it up and send it out the right way.

TBWA cought wind of this little video made by Nick Haley:



And turned it into this:



Not much but a little gloss, but success. For TBWA and for Apple by looking like they love their fans and their passion for the company.


Red Bull's new plan is user submitted stories that will be turned into commercials. They don't want videos or scripts, just broad ideas, funny stories, myths legends, and then give those to their marketing machine. This is a great idea. Let the agency do what it does best, while getting ideas from the outside.