Customized Multi-channel Marketing - hosted by L2Lessons From Chevy
Published by Ariel in the early morning on April 7th, 2006 in Creative Process, Marketing, Alternative Marketing, Viral Marketing.
Chevy/GM recently launched a "do-it-yourself" website for visitors to create commercials about the Chevy Tahoe using corporate movie clips and user-supplied text. Unmoderated.
Now, given the viral nature of the internet, something that is interesting, easy, and amusing will tend to spread quickly. However, due to the nature of most people, something that is also satirical or controversial is going to spread even faster.
So with the controversial nature of SUVs in general, it is no surprise that the humorous "commercials" created on this site have spread farther and faster than the fan commercials. There are numerous sites currently just aggregating the humorous offerings and it’s gotten so big that Nightline did a story on it.
The question is, what is Chevy going to do about it?
If they are smart, they will immediately start designing at least two new high milage cars - a small SUV like Toyota’s Highlander Hybrid, and something in the sedan family. They should also work on improving the gas milage for most, if not all, of their current line-up.
This would allow them to prove that they "get it" and then they could crow about what they’ve learned and how they’ve listened and that they care about what their customers (and potential customers) think.
Head over to B.L. Ochman’s blog and read her take on this. She’s been following for some time.
And, yes, implementing new tech can cost money but before anyone says that lowering gas milage would hurt Chevy’s profits, answer this: do you think the Industrial Revolution and the Computer Revolution were cheap? This may not be on the same scale but I would be willing to bet that the increased sales opportunity would create a handsome ROI. (Can anyone find me stats on what it costs for the parts for an improved fuel-efficiency car? I think I read $70 somewhere but I can’t find the link.)
Anyway, if Chevy listens this time and cleans up their vehicles, they can then proudly use all of these "negative" ads as real examples of how they listen to feedback. And that could do them a world of good.
Update: I’m a touch behind. GM does offer several hybrid vehicles. Now they need to go viral with those!
Chevy already won... How many millions of people went to the site because of this campaign if only to stare at the 'banned' ads.
Well Played Mr. Chevy!
Chevy has apparently only banned ads that were offensive in nature and those aren't available to see there any more. They claim they are not removing ads for merely being critical.
They also claim that only 16% of ads (as of last thursday) were negative - but those are the ones that are actually getting passed around and talked about. No one appears to be interested in the straight-up ads... but is anyone outside of GM surprised about that?
I will be interested to see if they actually got anything original out of the "positive" ads. The stated goal of this campaign was to have fans share their experiences and promote the cars themselves. From that standpoint, the campaign seems to be a flop. None of those ads have gone viral.
A second goal was to find out what their customers actually liked about the cars. The jury is out on that but I would be surprised if they actually got anything startling and new out of canned clips. I expect that the analysis here will be along the lines of: 35% of participants chose clip D and 23% chose clip B so something like these two would get a good response in our own advertising.
What will be interesting is what they do now if they try to target those 16% for conversion.
Ariel:
That is really a brilliant point.
BL
Hey, I just saw a Mastercard commercial while I was on the road this week... I don't know how long it's been out, but you can put your own words into the now-classic: such-and-such:$x, this-n-that:$y BigFinish:Priceless format.
I wonder if they watched the Chevy thing. They aren't letting any ads out into the wild until they pick some winners. Probably 'smart', but I'm disappointed they didn't have more video choices and let the crowd go wild with ideas. I mean come on, in that case, I think Negative/Silly ads would still work positively for Mastercard. They are definitely in the #2 spot Brand wise behind Visa, I think this is a case is 'any press is good as long as they spell your name right'.
Anyone remember the spoof of Mastercard that ended: "A Girlfriend who's Father has a Sense of Humor?" (I won't link but it's on youtube.. PG-13ish.. it's called "Indecent Proposal"). I think that was forwarded to me in Email 10 times or more. I don't think it diminished my opinion of Mastercard. Also, I've used their catchphrase to describe 'priceless' situations myself in meetings, embarrassing moments, things coming together unexpectedly. It's a bit tired now, but everyone gets the reference. I think they are about 6 months late with this very good idea.
The problem with the various Mastercard campaigns is, I feel great about the brand, but use Visa. I'm sure I could figure it out, but, how do I GET a Mastercard anyway? They haven't figured out a way for me to decide that the Priceless campaign will make me use their card. As a brand campaign it's awesome but I wonder how it's directly impacted revenue?
(and maybe that doesn't matter given their goals but I would argue, if I don't use their card, it failed for me as a campaign)
Anyway, here's a link to the add campaign.
www.priceless.com (nice URL).
BTW, they could use some serious Search Engine Optimization.
Sorry if this is a ramble but I've put in work hours in all 3 U.S. Timezones today and have been up 22 hours on 4 hours of sleep. Yay weekend!