Doritos, Chevy Pave Way to Consumer-Created Super Bowl

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Following in Chevrolet's footsteps, Doritos has announced it, too, is asking people to create their own Super Bowl commercial focusing on how Doritos fit into a person's life. According to the promotional site, the process is simple. "Shoot it. Submit it. We'll pick the top five and from those, America will vote for its favorite. What happens with the winner? We debut it as a Doritos commercial on Super Bowl XLI." Who needs an ad agency anyway?

by Steve Hall    Sep-26-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Promotions



College Students to Create Chevrolet Super Bowl Commercial

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Chevy is amping up its obsession with consumer generated media and has launched a contest for college students to enter competition, create an ad for the company, get it produced and have it air during the Super Bowl in 2007. With teams of three students, the focus will be on the automaker's Aveo, Cobalt, HHR and Equinox. Students will submit their concepts to Chevy and five will be chosen to present to Chevy and its ad agency in the Fall. The winner will participate in production. No mention was made regarding just how much creative control students will maintain once the idea is handed over but we're pretty confident Chevy will be honorable in this area.

by Steve Hall    Sep-11-06    
Topic: Commercials, Consumer Created, Good, Super Bowl 2007



Travel Site Wants Your Ads

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To call attention to its all-in-one travel site, Kayak is running a contest in which people can submit ads for the service and if the company likes it, it will fly the creator to New York to have it professionally produced. There's already 400 ads people have submitted hosted over at YouTube.

by Steve Hall    Sep- 8-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Good



Launch of Anheuser-Busch Bud.TV And Bud Tube Confirmed

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We knew it was coming. We knew it was only a matter of time. Well, now it's official. Anheuser-Busch, in February 2007, will launch Bud.tv, an online content channel with entertainment, news, celebrity interviews, comedy and sports and Bud Tube, a YouTube-like site whereby people can upload the usual consumer generated media type stuff. The brewer has invested 30 million on the project and content will come from Kevin Spacey, Vince Vaugh, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon-owned production companies as well as from the agencies that currently produce the brewer's advertising. With a February 2007 launch, it's likely we'll see Super Bowl spots promoting the launch - that is if the TV net doesn't see it as too competitive.



Crappy Jeep Commercial Leads to Wasted Saturday on YouTube

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With nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon, we decided to follow a link under a really crappy Jeep spoof commercial on YouTube to morbeck's Biggest Video Response Chain Ever thing. We sometimes lead a very sheltered and quarantined life here in the Adrants high rise because, well, we're just too busy finding trivial advertisms and time wasters for you to enjoy so, we end up spending 24/7 trolling the Internet for crap like this that makes you wonder why the human race has nothing better to do that act like an idiot in front of a webcam. Oh wait. Sorry, I mean join the social ecocosm, and pump out paradigm-shifting consumer-generated media which, according to A-list bloggers, is transforming the world and causing marketers to drool uncontrollably like a male ad slut watching a Flirt Vodka ad.

more »

by Steve Hall    Aug-26-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Video



Fuck Starving Kids, Have A Freakin' Delicious Starbucks Frappucino

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Tick, tick, tick, That's the sound of the clock counting the time it takes Starbucks lawyers to get angry, contact YouTube and ask them to yank this psuedo-frappucino commercial that compares the cost of a "freakin delicious" frappucino to feeding a starving kid in Sudan for a week but that advocates opting for the frappucino instead. Consumer-Created Media at it's finest! Except when the table is turned on the brand.

by Steve Hall    Aug-23-06    
Topic: Commercials, Consumer Created, Spoofs, Video



Chevrolet Wants Your Spare Time, Where Time Comes From A Mystery

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That new mirror pic ad babe, Ariel, isn't too pleased with Chevrolet's second foray into the whole consumer generated media thing. oh wait. Sorry. She doesn't like being called an ad babe. Besides, that's rude and inconsiderate. WTF were we to think. Our most sincere aplogies, Ariel. Anyway, enough with our Neanderthal mentality. Let's talk about Chevy.

Chevy's new promotion, called reduceuruse, is, we guess, a follow up to its Chevy Tahoe roll-your-own commercial thing which through a dumb-ish commercial featuring a guy with a bucket on his head getting smacked by baseballs launched from a pitching machine, asks people to submit a video showing what they'd do with all the time they'd gain by using E85 fuel. As far as we know, E85 doesn't magically appear in one's gas tanked and still has to be pumped so we're not sure where all this saved time is coming from. Perhaps someone can enlighten us. Perhaps someone can enlighten Chevrolet too. The reduceuruse site doesn't exactly do a great job explaining what it wants. Oh, and the Alternative Fuels link takes you to a page that features the much crapped on Tahoe. Perhaps they could have featured a different vehicle. After all, GM says E85 fuel works in a lot more vehicles than the Tahoe. And what's up with that freakishly odd dancing couple?

by Steve Hall    Aug-21-06    
Topic: Bad, Consumer Created, Online



Firefox Gets Crop Circle Love

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There's nothing more powerful that a Firefox lover. OK, maybe an Apple lover but they're both freaks anyway. Ariel tells us a bunch of Firefox lovers in Oregon went out an created a crop circle in the shape of the Firefox logo. A team of 12 people did it in 24 ours and it's 220 feet in diameter. If you want all the nitty gritty details on how they accomplished the task, it's all here ad-nauseam.

by Steve Hall    Aug-17-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Good, Guerilla, Outdoor



Benny Benassi Bootie Babes Transformed Into Home Depot Ad

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Not that it's likely we'll ever see women like this in an actual Home Depot but It looks like someone took our advice of of three years ago and went ahead and turned that Benny Benassi "Satisfaction" video into an ad by slapping the Home Depot logo on it along with some price and item graphics. It would certainly heat up Home Depot's image but, for some reason, we think they'll pass of this one. Get your jiggle-fest here.

by Steve Hall    Aug-16-06    
Topic: Brands, Consumer Created, Spoofs



True Consumer Generated Media Should Not Be manufactured

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Over at Shake Well Before Use, Ariel wonders if Consumer Generated Media is an offensive, if not meaningless, term since its current iteration by marketers places so many limitations on it by boxing in CGM with all sorts of cut and paste rules of brand engagement. Or, worse, creating it on their own and passing it off as CGM like Pop Secret did. She argues true consumer generated media (or any term you choose to throw at it) should be organic and limitless. Opining insightfully, Ariel says marketers, in their efforts to hop on the latest trend, are wasting their time trying to create a desired reaction rather than maximizing and leveraging an already organically existing one.

by Steve Hall    Aug- 8-06    
Topic: Consumer Created, Opinion