Wednesday, June 10, 2009

User-Generated Advertising with YouTube & Sprint

The second week of May Sprint ran an ad on YouTube, taking over the masthead banner to display Sprint's Now Network in the form of a real-time digital clock, using user-generated video to create the numbers. Sprint assigned numbers to those who wished to participate, and then managed for 24 hours the streaming of the user-generated videos accordingly (for example, at 1:42, Sprint streamed video from three users, all displaying in their own creative expression the numbers 1, 4 and 2).


Jennifer Van Grove writes in a post on Mashable: "While Hulu seems to be focused on adding more premium content to attract premium advertisers, YouTube’s experimentation with ad formats appears to be an attempt to demonstrate that integrating social and user content into ads is a big new way to turn advertisements into premium content that viewers want to engage with."

Other companies have ventured into this area, hoping to engage users with advertising to create an enhanced experience; for platforms, one that is worth more in revenue, for products/services, one that delivers sales, and for users, an experience that is a welcomed rather than intrusive engagement. Volvo also launched an ad, using the YouTube masthead space, which included a live Twitter feed for user participation. It will be interesting to see where this goes..

Has anyone seen this Sprint Now Network clock? I've found articles like the one in Mashable mentioned above but I can't find evidence of the campaign, on either the YouTube or Sprint sites. It would be interesting to see the actual clock and to hear more about the campaign after its launch, as the two articles (links below) I found are both in anticipation of the ad's debut.

http://mashable.com/2009/05/12/sprint-youtube-campaign/
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105650

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