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

HBO's BloodCopy on Gawker

HBO's idea is to play along "that fine line of fully disrupting someone's experience and at the same time immersing them in your experience," said Zach Enterlin, vice president of advertising and promotions for HBO.

HBO, in promoting its new series True Blood last summer, created a blog for vampires, BloodCopy.com - Vampire News with Bite. The show True Blood is based on the premise that due to the creation of synthetic blood, vampires are now free to walk amongst us humans. As part of HBO's marketing campaign, it aimed to create the world that the premise of the show is based on; vampires are out, working/loving/walking alongside humans (at night anyway, of course). BloodCopy.com is where these vampires interact online, posting on current topics such as politics, entertainment, news, and fashion as it pertains to their particular community. Posts sound like this one: "Every hipster with a neckerchief and an MFA is reading Pride and Predjudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith. If the L train were a famous talk-show host's book club, PAPAZ would be its Eat, Pray, Love."

This season, taking BloodCopy.com and the campaign to the next level, HBO has teamed with brands such as Harley-Davidson and Monster.com to create vampire-targeted advertisements. These ads are displayed on the blog and on the 'official' True Blood website.

A bit of controversy erupted just the other day, when Gawker picked up BloodCopy.com for inclusion in its roster of very popular (and all legitimate/'real') blogs. "Gawker Media announced last night that it acquired BloodCopy.com," Silicon Alley Insider (an industry news blog) reported last Saturday morning. "It's a blog about vampires. Really." The next day they apologized for the misunderstanding, but also added, "We also think that HBO, Gawker, and the marketing agency crossed a line ... We're all for experimental online advertising, viral marketing, etc. ... In our opinion, however, this campaign is designed to trick people."

Zach Enterlin at HBO replied with, "The goal isn't to really mislead at all. It's just igniting curiosity. I think the way the ads are done, there's a certain amount of known quantity with a wink. It inspires a double take. We're trying to make them as authentic as possible, but it's an absolute necessity that they have that element of 'wink'."

I can see how the broad issue of setting up a fake blog as part of a marketing campaign and then somewhat staging it as real could certainly be inappropriate and even dangerous in some situations (medical products and services, for example). But I think that in entertainment it is a natural extension of creativity, and HBO is just really good at being creative. I also think it's somewhat telling that the criticism came from someone who didn't get the joke, or as Enterlin puts it, the wink ;)....

Official True Blood site – http://www.hbo.com/trueblood/
BloodCopy - http://www.bloodcopy.com/
Article by Brian Steinberg on AdAge.com –
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090529/FREE/905299988
Gavin O'Malley's post on Online Media Daily –
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?art_aid=106720&fa=Articles.showArticle

Setting an Online Trend.. Three Wolves = Sarcastic Fashion

So this topic made its media/blog run about a week ago. Aside from being funny, I think it speaks to several marketing concepts - viral marketing (consumer-driven), the conversation driven by the audience rather than the company or marketers, and the opportunities in utilizing user-generated content (as well as the user-review format providing a new platform for creativity - the comments section as participatory, and in this case, sarcastic, creative writing).

Three Wolf Moon Adult Tee on Amazon.com

Brian Govern, a 32-year-old law student Rutgers School of Law in N.J., found this t-shirt while browsing through Amazon.com's apparel section (we're in grad school - my guess is while doing homework). On November 10, 2008, he posted this review (just an excerpt edited by me, check out the link at the bottom of this post for the full review):

This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that's when the magic happened... I arrived at Wal-mart, mounted my courtesy-scooter (walking is such a drag!) sitting side saddle so that my wolves would show. While I was browsing tube socks, I could hear aroused asthmatic breathing behind me. I turned around to see a slightly sweaty dream in sweatpants and flip-flops standing there. She told me she liked the wolves on my shirt, I told her I wanted to howl at her moon. She offered me a swig from her mountain dew, and I drove my scooter, with her shuffling along side out the door and into the rest of our lives. Thank you wolf shirt.
Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts women
Cons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the 'guns'), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

This review inspired Amazon cruisers to contribute their stories of the shirt's magical powers (1,012 reviews total as of right now), including some of the selections below:

Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather - from Overlook1977

For you left brain types out there, who are still unsure on whether or not this shirt would make a wise purchase, allow me to break it down for you. Most shirts like this only contain one wolf. This shirt has three wolves, plus a moon. You are basically getting three wolves and a moon for the price on one wolf. You won't find that deal anywhere else - from lowwwwi

Pros: It's, amazing, this only works out at $5 per wolf - with the moon thrown in free! Yep, three awesome howling wolves and a free moon - who can argue with value like that, especially on unemployment benefits in these tough economic times.
Cons: One time at a party I spilled Natural Light Beer onto my upper-left wolf, and for a while it looked more like a howling collie than a wolf. It totally spoiled my mojo - I mean what chick wants to get with two-wolves and Lassie? I was pretty worried for a while but it all ended up okay in the end - my Mum washed it for me and I picked up two prime unwed-teenagers at the next party. - from G. Smith

According to The Mountain, the New Hampshire-based company that makes Three Wolf Moon shirts, the company has gone from selling 2 to 3 of the shirts a day to 100 an hour on Amazon. As Peter Applebome wrote in the NY Times on May 24, 2009, "Like the butterfly wings creating the tornado, Mr. Govern inadvertently helped set off an almost impossible marketing bonanza and pop-culture craze: The shirt has been Amazon's top-selling item of apparel every day since May 19, and it has morphed into one of those instant icons of Internet culture."

What does this mean for marketers? Clearly people want to be part of the conversation, and are willing to contribute their time to do so. This was not a campaign, and The Mountain didn't set out to market its shirt in a viral manner. But it seems as if there's an opportunity here - finding ways to tap into the interest/desire in expressing creativity might be a good avenue for an intention viral campaign. In reading through these posts, I thought first, who has the time to do this, and then, this is some funny and creative stuff. Most jobs/daily life activities do not provide the opportunity for expressing creativity. So a bunch of people found a way to through a wolf t-shirt - that's a lot of attention from a large audience. And it worked out well for The Mountain, although maybe not for Brian, original reviewer.. “I tell my parents and friends that it’s sad, but this is probably the most impact I’ll have on the world in my life.”

If you don't have time to look at anything else, and are bored/procrastinating with homework like (I'm guessing) Brian the Reviewer was, check out this video review (that's right, people made videos too!) starring Pocahontas and a man in a mullet and Mets shirt:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R29Z83O4AK10UD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

Peter Applebome's NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/nyregion/25towns.html
Meghan Daum's LA Times article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum28-2009may28,1,4391040.column
Amazon.com (the review or if you want to be the hottest wolf t-shirt wearing thing in the Hamptons this summer):
http://www.amazon.com/THREE-WOLF-SHIRT-ADULT-TEE/product-reviews/B000NZW3IY/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending