Last Friday (8th — I am VERY behind in my blogging), I learned about two video contests aimed at the "younger set," one from Chevy and the other from Gourmet Station.
Disclosure: my sources in both instances were women bloggers who were involved in the development of the respective projects, Nellie Lide for Chevy and Toby Bloomberg for Gourmet Station, and god bless them, they were asking for my opinion. Lucky for them, I’ve gotten my cranky post out of the way for today (see earlier "Forget Things Remembered"), so they don’t have to be too worried about getting what they wished for.
So, here’s the thing I find absolutely the most interesting thing about the two contests. Aimed at similiarly aged audiences — Chevy directly at college student, Gourmet Station at 20- and early 30-somethings, the approaches are very different. Now, of course, some of this can be laid squarely at budget. Chevy has lotsa bucks, Gourmet Station, not so much. In fact, the need to stay to a tight budget was acknowledged by the folks who developed the Get out of the doghouse campaign for Gourmet Station.
Chevy’s contest asks college students to develop a TV commercial to "to reignite the love affair between Americans and Chevrolet." It is supported by a standard format blog and a Web site. Chevy will produce the winning commercial and air it during the Super Bowl. Pretty cool idea. The PR effort used both the standard format press release, and a "social media press release," and you can read Nellie’s thoughts about that on the New Persuasion blog. Net: this contest is a good execution of a creative idea using a combination of new and old techniques, but it’s not revolutionary.
Still cool though and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the winning commercial since that’s the only reason I watch the Super Bowl anyway. Yeah yeah, I know, un-American. Your point?
Gourmet Station’s Get out of the doghouse campaign, on the other hand, is a grassroots marketing campaign. Folks are asked to create and submit YouTube videos talking about a time they were in the doghouse, and how they got out of it. The connection to Gourmet Station is the idea that a gift of a gourmet meal is one way to get yourself out. The contest site is on MySpace and they’ve worked with comedians active on MySpace to attract a younger audience. Props to the company: they are also contributing to Borzoi Rescue as part of the program. So we’ve got a real revolutionary "smash-up" — YouTube, MySpace and Gourmet Station’s Web site.
I give Toby and Marianne Richmond, her partner in the project, credit for trying something truly new and definitely understand the desire to reach out to the MySpace audience. I hope the MySpacers enter the contest. However, I find the site distracting and am not sure it does justice to the creative idea. The format is just too confining. Which is amusing, given how so many are using MySpace to express their individuality 🙂
I wish Gourmet Station had the budget to do a Web site for the contest that communicated the idea more clearly and effectively. They could still have used MySpace to engage the community, but not to tell the whole story. The MySpace site just feels too jumbled.
Now, I will be honest. I do not get MySpace. At all. Am I old and cranky? Perhaps. But it just doesn’t seem like an efficient way to convey information. It just reminds me of Web sites in the early days (94-ish) with or without <blink>.
My .02. YMMV. Possibly especially if you are younger 🙂
Registration for the Chevy contest is closed, but the Gourmet Station contest is still open until early October. Check it out.
PS: Good Technology still hasn’t contacted us about the phone number problem.
Tags: Chevy, Gourmet Station, grassroots marketing, viral marketing, social media, Toby Bloomberg, Nellie Lide, Good Technology
Toby says
Susan – thanks for the shout out and your in-depth feedback. Sure would have been nice to have a bit of the Chevy budget! One of our goals was to maintain a “MySpacey feel” and it could be we went to the far end of the spectrum on that one. Without a doubt MySpace is an ugly, clunky interface and difficult to build on.
Next on our to do list is to make “friends.” Looking forward to the videos from your readers .. and perhaps you too! Grand prize is a year’s worth of gourmet meals delivered to your door. Valued at over $1000.
Rachel M says
When used the right way MySpace can be a wonderful way to get a message out there. There are many bands, which without MySpace, would not be popular. People also use it to promote themselves, like Gourmet Station is doing. To appeal to the 20 something generation you have to show them that you can use the technology that they use. It would have been wonderful for Gourmet Station to have a website but this is what MySpace is for it is a way for people to have web pages without spending money.
Susan Getgood says
The good news is, Rachel is in the target audience for this contest whereas I am not.
I do wonder though, will this MySpace generation still want this mash-up stuff as it gets older? Or will it start to look more like “us” as we are now becoming more like our parents.
Things to ponder…
Adam Keeshan says
Chevy and Gourmet Station have excellent marketing strategies going on for them. It’s so smart to take advantage of websites like MySpace and YouTube. Thousands of people access both of these websites daily and has to be one of the most effective ways of reach the college aged students. The set-up of MySpace’s website is awful in my opinion and I think that it is a phase the most people will eventually grow out of. I think MySpace will eventually be an outlet for many people into the blogging world.