Chevrolet's "Write-Your-Own Ads" Gone Wrong

By Rick Mathieson
GENERATION WOW

April 5 – I don’t know about you, but I just can’t think of anything more fun than sitting in front of a computer to create a free ad for a giant corporation.

Don’t laugh. A new online campaign from Chevrolet is designed to do just that.

The promotion involves Donald Trump’s TV show “The Apprentice” and a Web site (www.chevyapprentice.com) where consumers can select music and insert their own on-screen text into existing video clips to create their own thirty-second commercials for the 2007 Chevy Tahoe.

Now, you may ask: Has the state of the American auto industry deteriorated so badly that it’s now up to consumers to foot their own ads? Not exactly.

Introduced on the March 13 episode of Trump’s show, the Tahoe promotion is part of a hot new trend called “consumer-generated advertising.”

The idea: Entice hip young consumers to create their own videos with the hope that they’ll email the custom ads to their friends to build big-time buzz for your brand.

Is this a great new way to sell cars, or a particularly efficient way to pave that ‘ole road to hell? Well, judging from the videos circulating on video-hosting sites like youtube.com, this is one SUV promotion that has taken a turn for the worse.

”If you want a gas-guzzling, road-hogging, global warming-causing ride, buy a Tahoe,” proclaims one faux ad, after pointing out that the vehicle lacks basic Gen Wow features like an iPod plug-in.

Another declares: “This powerful V8 engine gets only 15 miles per gallon. In a world of limited resources, you don’t need GPS to know where the road leads.”

Yet another, entitled “2327,” ties the SUV to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq, as the spot’s creator puts it, to ensure a steady stream of oil.

It stands to reason that a marketer engaging in this kind of promotion would recognize the dangers of putting a major brand in the hands of consumers. But Chevy’s not alone. One recent offer from Nike to produce customized shoes, for instance, reportedly ran awry when one consumer requested the words “Sweatshop” be emblazoned on his Nike iD running shoes. Factor in a product category as polarizinig as SUVs, and you’re just asking for the campaign to backfire, right?

Not in Chevrolet’s eyes.

"We anticipated that there would be critical submissions," Chevrolet spokesperson Melisa Tezanos recently told The New York Times. "You do turn over your brand to the public, and we knew that we were going to get some bad with the good. But it's part of playing in this space."

In other words, in the idiom of brand marketers, any publicity is good publicity. And Chevrolet is among a growing number of advertisers eager to cash in on the trend.

• Take MasterCard. After years of seeing its popular “priceless” commercials ruthlessly parodied on the Web, the company has launched an online sweepstakes at www.priceless.com that lets consumers insert their own on-screen text into a pair of existing TV commercials. The best spot will be broadcast on television for millions to see.

• McDonalds, still smarting from the film “SuperSize Me” and anxious about this May’s film adaptation of Eric Schosser’s book “Fast Food Nation,” has taken a different route to consumer-generated content. As part of its ubiquitous “I’m loving it” campaign, consumers can submit a photo and a personal story about something they love at www.mcdglobalcasting.com for the chance to be featured on product packaging.

• To promote Samuel L. Jackson’s summer thriller “Snakes On A Plane, “ New Line Cinema is actually encouraging fans to create their own promotional commercials, t-shirts, posters and more.

• One of the better such consumer-generated efforts I’ve seen is decidedly low-tech. New beach towels made up to look like the cover of a Playboy magazine feature the masthead only, with the effect of turning the sunbathing consumers laying atop them into “cover models.”

Enlisting citizen marketers can actually make sense for companies large and small that hope to connect with their customers in a fun new way.

But before you launch your own consumer-generated ad campaign, take note of one key difference between Chevrolet’s effort and those of some of the others mentioned here.

Yes, promotions like New Line’s and Playboy’s only make sense if consumers are given a free hand. Besides, they represent little real risk.

But MasterCard and McDonald’s campaigns wisely require participants to submit their work for review in order to win a promotional contest. That way, the companies stay in control of the content, instead of finding themselves embarrassed by it.

Had Tahoe’s promotion taken that road, consumers would still have their fun.

And Chevrolet would still be in the driver’s seat.