User created content is still a point of contention for marketeers. Some companies are wary of ‘giving’ their brand to the consumer, others have no problem in doing so. We recently covered a few companies who have used a user generated platform to great effect, such as Domino’s Pizza’s pizza builder and Red Bull’s Flight lab. And also companies who have failed to grasp how new marketing works, such as Hasbro and Subway and Quiznos.
Now Hugo Boss has decided to give it a go. The Belgian creatives from RockandRollAgency have created the Hugo Create campaign. Visitors of the website are stimulated to use the Hugo Generator Design Tool to create their custom illustration based around the Hugo Boss brand. The created design can be downloaded as wallpaper or sent to friends. And the best entries will be awarded with £500 in prize money.
We do like hilarious UGC material, but we are mainly looking for compelling BGC (brand generated content) concepts and virals. Brands like Virgin Mobile, Virgin Atlantic and Burger King are a great catch for us, since they have lots of guts and thus also loads of glory.
But Jeep, MTV and Red Bull are also rebellious brands that are on our watchlist. Red Bull launched a great concept called Flugtag Flight Lab.
In the Red Bull Flugtag Flight Lab users can built a plane or take a flight. It’s a fun and facilitating concept. Do you know more great campaigns? Don’t be a stranger and mail them to us!
For anyone unaware of what Scrabulous is, it’s one of the most used and downloaded Facebook applications. Nearly 600,000 users play the game on a daily basis. The game was created by two software developing brothers, Rajat and Jayant Aganwalla, from Calcutta.
Hasbro found out about the game and decided they were being infringed on their copyright and ordered the game to be taken down. This sparked protest from Scrabulous’ loyal fans. The application which had reinvigorated the brand and re-acquainted hundreds of thousands of people with a game which was collecting dust on many an attic, was now being punished by trigger happy lawyers with no grasp of new marketing.
The latest news is that EA, who acquired the rights to bring Hasbro games into an interactive format last August, are going to produce their own online and interactive version of Scrabble.
I’m sure the hundreds of thousand pissed off Scrabulous fans are jumping for joy!
Companies are looking more and more towards the internet to build and enhance their brands. User Generated Content is one of the ways some brands are looking at to try and get their consumers to engage with their brand.
Quiznos wrote out a competition in which they asked consumers to sent in a home made video explaining why their subs are better than those from Subway. What may have seen like a good idea is turning into a bit of a nightmare. Subway has decided to sue Quiznos as they hold them responsible for the content which was created for its contest.
As Subway forced Quiznos to take down the content, the videos have migrated to Youtube - where they probably got a lot more views than they would have had on Quiznos’ site. B.L Ochman has written an excellent piece about this and shows how both these companies have failed to grasp the core concepts of new media.
Domino’s Pizza Builder is a smart way to drive e-commerce revenues. Earlier we looked at KnickerPicker, a smart and fun fashion solution that makes online shopping a better experience to consumers.
If you have seen more great e-commerce or online shopping solutions like these, please list them below! Maybe we can built a Top10 list? I found this campaign at Martina’s Adverblog.
Some brands and it’s commercials seem to be very appealing to spoofs. Lately, I have seen many spoofs of the Dove Onslaught viral commercial.
After this Cillit Bang spoof with Barry Scott, Cillit Bang had to swallow another. In above spoof Cillit Gang Bang is cleaning all dirty xxx rated left overs. It seems that an adult party was held here?
Why are some specific brands the target for spoofs? That’s what I really would like to know…Is it because their TV commercials are so irritating? Help me out…
JamesatWar from Fairbanks, Alaska likes to spoof things. Since he joined YouTube about 3 months ago he recorded some hilarious and quite successful videos, e.g. Star Trek Shatner Back and Nickelback Rockstar Spoof. His YouTube fanbase quickly grew to over 6,000 subscribers in just 90 days. His latest music video “Blame Halo 3″ is a humorous parody of Akon’s apologetic anthem “Sorry, Blame It On Me” about game addiction and lack of parental responsibility. Halo 3 brings a lot of guys a lot of enjoyment, but some don’t realize how it is affecting their loved ones or should I call them ‘videogame widows’?
A first wedding dance is a special, once in a lifetime moment. But a growing number of wedding couples are fed up with the awkward, dull traditional first dance. They are jumping on the latest cool and hip trend and hire dance instructors for choreographed first dances. To surprise their guests, brides and grooms are encouraged to start with a traditional slow dance, and then cutting loose into something wilder.
We’ve taken a look at a number of first wedding dances posted at YouTube and compiled the ultimate and latest top ten wedding dance video list. Check out the Top 10 chart after the jump.
Funny animals and pets are hot on the internet. Especially cats seem to be very popular! Famous cats with internet stardom, include LOLcats, Battle Cats, Nora: The Piano Playing Cat, Sleepy Cat and Nokia’s Flying Cat. The latest ‘cat celebrities’ are Stina and Mossy, Two Talking Cats, uploaded to YouTube by ‘TheCatsPyjaaaamas’ about 5 months ago. The video quickly got over 1 million views.
About 2 week ago Skariko reposted the video on YouTube. Again it got over 1 million views. For months we couldn’t understand the important conversation these two cats are having. Luckily, YouTube user klaatu42 recently has provided the English version:
