Socially outsourcing your marketing

As more and more companies start to latch on to social media and look at ways to leverage it, there seems to be one tactic that is used again and again to engage customers - Getting the masses to do your marketing work for you. Offering some sort of incentive (monetary or prize typically) in return for them creating your next brand name, commercial, slogan, etc. Companies are straying from the often expensive creative agency in favour of asking their customers, fans, friends to provide them with ideas, concepts, mock ups, and anything else.

Is it really "engaging your customers" or are you more taking advantage of them by using their creative work for cheap (Some of the prizes can be as small as iPods and iPads)? Individuals won't typically know what this intellectual property can actually be worth and they will have no knowledge of copyrights or trademarks like marketing people that work in the business.

Some of the ideas generated through this social outsourcing could result in the next "google" brand name or the next mac vs. apple commercials that are wildly successful for a company, yet the individual who has poured their time and hours into the project usually is modestly compensated.

Then there is the flipside that sometimes it may not be worth a company's time. If you receive a large number of responses to your social outsourcing you want to go through them all in search of gold. I'm sure more often than not you will be looking at pyrite because these individuals don't have the experience and knowledge of a creative agency. Creativity isn't something that requires an MBA but advertising companies are successful for a reason.

So where do you stand on this idea of social outsourcing? I think the trend will probably fade out but maybe that is just the rantings of someone who's amazing ideas continue to be left in the "pyrite" pile when he submits them.

Cialis commercials come up limp

As most people in the marketing world know Cialis, Viagra, and other pills aimed at adding some pop to people's peckers have restrictions on the type of things they can say and do in their advertisements. This has led to some amazingly creative work from Viagra and to a lesser extent Cialis.



But some of the latest Cialis commercials are more puzzling than interesting, funny, or attention-grabbing. First they had one featuring a guy at work sitting on some scaffolding (I can't find the commercial on youtube) and then all of a sudden the scaffolding starts moving and being pulled down roads back to his house where his "lady friend" is watering the garden or something. They are clearly going for a symbolism-type commercial but I am totally missing this one.

Then they came up with this

cialis morning from Me on Vimeo.

Here's my idea for the next Viagra/Cialis/Levitra campaign.

A man is rummaging around in his record/CD collection. He picks up a new disc/record and looks at the back of it. He throws it over his shoulder. More rummaging ensues. Again he picks up a disc, looks at the back, thinks about it for a moment and then tosses it over his shoulder. More rummaging. He finds another disc, and a broad smile crosses his face. He removes the disc and puts it in the player. Cut to his wife reading in another room. Marvin Gaye, Let's Get it on, begins to play loudly and the noise enters the room the wife is in. A broad smile crosses her face. Close with the standard Viagra ending.

BAM! That's how its done Cialis.

Great musical commercials

One of my original posts on this blog was about using music to help create a memorable commercial. Well lots of ads have used this technique since I wrote about it, and its not like my post was anything earth shattering, and some of my recent favourites are these:

Honda Accord 2010 Crosstour commercial


Nissan Titan



Alexander Keith's Beer Birthday commercial


A little different, but a movie trailer (technically still an ad) for Dear John


The musical editing provides the tone and feel for these commercials and draws you into them deeper as a result. They are all really well done and the musical selection is incredible. It still impresses me each time I hear a song in an ad that i've never heard and how powerful it can be to grab the attention of the viewer.

Have you seen any ad's like this lately that utilize a good background song?