Cadbury’s Australia launched a campaign recently for it’s Picnic Bar. Picnic chocolate bar is made of nuts, wafer, chocolate, rice crisps and caramel – quite a mouthful. George Patterson Y&R, challenged its audience to eat a Picnic in the space of a :30 commercial break. People filmed themselves using mobile phones, webcams and handycams and then created their own TV ads using the website, It’s no Picnic.
The number of responses is usually linked to ease of participation, the equity of the brand and the fun aspect of the ‘act’ involved. This contest was made fun and easy by letting contestants choose one of 50 pre-recorded voice overs. Personalization was made possible by inserting your own name (they had a database of 1400 – in India one would have to a tad more than that!). Hence, the final product looks like a finished, professional TV commercial rather than an amateur home video. And importantly, the approved commercials were dispatched as and when they were created, with every ad airing once – creating a campaign of hundreds of individual spots.
Consumer creation of ads is not new. Doritos, Tide 2 Go and several others (Indica Xeta in India) have all done it. But the ease of creating and airing this campaign makes it appealing. Not to mention the excitement of consumers seeing themselves on national TV. A straight jacketed :30 spot will soon go out of fashion.
