The 2007 Super Bowl generated approximately 93 million viewers to watch the Indianapolis Colts play the Chicago Bears. Since companies know the Super Bowl generates a large audience, they’re willing to spend and use tremendous amounts of resources on marketing . However, airtime during the Super Bowl isn’t cheap, so companies try to ensure that their advertisement/s are affective.
Consumer-generated marketing is defined as “brand exchanges created by consumers themselves- both invited and uninvited- by which consumers are playing an increasing role in shaping their own branding experiences and those of other consumers”. Frito-Lay’s Doritos brand decided to use this marketing approach in order to generate conversation surrounding Doritos chips.
Doritos called their campaign the “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, which invites 30-second ads from consumers, with the two best ads being played during the Super Bowl. Here is an ad that was chosen by Doritos to play in the 2007 Super Bowl game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNxgxF-7SfA. This ad cost only $12.79 to produce (the cost of four bags of chips) but was approximately 45% more effective than the regularly, company produced ad. Now, as an incentive, Doritos offers $1 million US to any fan who can produce an ad that claims the top spot on the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter.
It is clear that consumer-generated marketing can create brand conversation, while remaining inexpensive and “cool”. However, there a few challenges such as selection (usually thousands of ads, most being inappropriate) and quality that Doritos, and other companies who use this approach have to manage. Yet, I still believe that this form of marketing is an effective and innovative approach which greatly benefits the company who uses it.
For those interested, here are other consumer created Super Bowl ads:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8QZo4mybGA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=9bRSM4EbLFw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=4rsEnwKrsvc