I have written a couple of times about the growing trend in "crowdsourcing" in the marketing world where advertisers seek ideas and even campaigns from their user base. I was curious to see how the various experiments played out on the Superbowl, especially Doritos’ effort which planned to run a $2.4m UGC ad.
As Fred Wilson points out in his post, My Favorite Superbowl Ad, both Doritos and these guys knocked it out of the park. Doritos had over 140 million impressions of their contest to create a Superbowl ad according to Cymphony. They had surpassed their advertising goal even before the game started.
More amazing is the fact that this was made by a bunch of 21-22 year olds for under $13. They talk a little about their efforts on their page of the Contest website. We will see if this is the beginning of something more widespread or simply a one-off PR stunt around the Superbowl. I have to believe that this will increase over time since it:
1) greatly expands the creative sources and ideas around an idea or product
2) is economically attractive
3) generates viral buzz
4) automatically creates connection and buy-in from the customer base as you reach out to them
Very cool. Congrats to John Compton and the Pepsi team on this one.