My Professor Matthews Kelli forwarded an interesting article to me, "Giving the People What They Want: Amateurs' Super Bowl Ad Ideas Prove To Be Big Winners".
According to an online poll by IAG Research of over 60,000 people, three consumer-conceived commercials - two for Doritos that were shot by amateurs and one for the National Football League that was professionally shot but based on a fan's idea- were among "the top-ranked ads for 'greatly' or 'somewhat' boosting viewers' positive feelings for the advertised products," reported by Luara Petrecca, USAT.
A Doritos ad showing a supermarket cashier with a shopper was ranked third, being 67% more effective than the average big name ad in improving the viewers' opinion of the advertised product. Another Doritos ad showing a young man flirting with a girl was 45% more effective and ranked sixth.
The consumer-generated ads, especially shot by consumers, are pretty fresh to me. Leaving the content of the commercials out first, the strategy of involving the ordinary people in the company's commercial production is very innovative. IAG co-founder Alan Gould told Petrecca that it's a good way to connect with the consumers. Furthermore, the idea collection process itself can generate a lot of publicity for the company. Publics are curious about how an amateur-produced commercial will look like.
Michael Solomon, a consumer behavior expert and author of Conquering Consumerspace, says that an ad "immediately gets a leg up in terms of credibility" if viewers know that the ad comes from a consumer, rather than a professional marketing department. For this comment, I do not quite agree with Mr. Solomon as I do not think this is an issue of credibility. Employing consumer-created ads does not mean the company is more credible. Those amateurs did not produce the commercials on a voluntary basis. Instead, they were motivated by companies' promotions. Therefore, people who created the ads for certain companies do not necessarily think highly of the companies. They did so probably just out of personal interests and the companies offered them the platform to show their talent and creativity.
The success of the best amateur, in my point of view, came from the fresh idea not been explored by professionals yet, and the "intimate" feeling of the viewers with the ads. Viewers tended to more appreciate the ads pulled off by amateurs because they would think they were much closer to the people who produced them. More, viewers felt that they were taken seriously by the companies because the companies would like to hear how ordinary people perceived them, and the companies respected the public’s opinions by airing the commercial. This strategy sounds like a two-way communication between a company and its customers. Customers will feel appreciated if they think the company value their feedbacks and suggestion.
No matter what, Doritos and NFL made a smart step to explore the new strategy to win over their customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment