A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{February 4, 2009}
Crowdsourced Doritos spot dethrones Anheuser-Busch’s #1 Ad Meter dynasty. _{By jason}

According to AdAge after 10 years the king of beers, Anheuser-Busch, has been dethroned as king of the Super Bowl Commercials by a $2000 user generated spot.

AB has long dominated the ad world with massive advertising budgets  ($237.9 million according to Competitive Media Reporting) and this in part has lead to a 10 year dominance of USA Today’s Ad Meter rankings.  That was until Frito-Lay and the arrival of the Herbert brothers.

Super Bowl XLIII was Frito-Lay’s third Super Bowl contest with Doritos. Theses consumer-generated spots have scored fourth on the ad meter for the past two years.  According to Frito-Lay’s VP of marketing, they “decided to see what would happen if they made a concerted attempt to win, tossing in a $1 million bonus to participants.” Well the results speak for themselves.

Joe and Dave Herbert, two brothers from Indiana scored the Super Bowl spot by winning the contest.  The spot “Free Doritos” features a guy who shatters a vending machine with his crystal ball (actually a snow globe) after predicting free Doritos for everyone in the office.  The real punch line however is when a fellow co-worker nails his boss in the groin with said crystal ball, after asking about a promotion in his future.  Sophomoric, maybe…..funny, definitely !

Here is the winning Doritos spot.

According to published reports The Herbert brothers plan to use their $1 million bonus to get started in feature film making. The two brothers quit their day jobs in 2007 after being finalists in Doritos’ first “Crash the Super Bowl” contest.  The strength of the spot and the negligible $2000 cost has the Ad world on it’s rear.

This will no doubt have many at the big Agencies scratching their heads ? Maybe (as stated in my previous  posts) it may even re-kindle a small thing called creativity. A component noticeably absent form many of the 33 spots sown at this years Super Bowl.  The real winner here however is Frito-Lay for embracing Crowdsourcing and growing their brand on the principles participatory design.  It may be high time that every creative director and brand manager read up on the works of Susumu Ogawa and Frank Piller.  Check out their 2005 paper over at MIT’s Sloan Management Review. (Collective Customer Commitment: Turning market research expenditures into sales). This paper explains the principles of Crowdsourcing using two case studies, Chicago-based T-shirt maker, Threadless and Japanese specialty furniture retailer Muji. This is a must read for anyone seruiusly interested in learning more about user-centered innovation.

So congratulations to Joe and Dave Herbert, for proving that the idea is still king and to Frito Lay for democratizing Innovation. Now where did I put that damn snow globe ?

Filed under: Agency News,Media News — Tags: Ad Meter, ads, advertising, Anheuser-Busch, Crowdsourcing, Doritos, innovation, super bowl — @ 12:23 pm

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