If you watched the Superbowl last weekend you probably saw a few ads for Doritos. According to Nielsen, the most watched TV ad of all time, (with 116.2 million viewers), featured a Samurai attack with a Dorito chip. Doritos ads also took the top three slots for most-recalled spots and four spots in the top-ten most-liked category.
What you may also have heard is that the Doritos ads were consumer-generated spots. CGM (Consumer Generated Media) has been generating buzz for several years…all the while the Media Emperor’s cloths have begun to look a little thread-bare. The idea behind CGM is that individual consumers often possess great talent and expertise, and if you can just give them an opening, they may deliver the goods. Now, mind you, TV spot production is a big-budget undertaking requiring exceptional creative and technical expertise and should not be attempted by amateurs. In the case of the Doritos ads, the ideas, not the execution, were consumer-generated.
But according to MIT’s Ad Lab blog, the proverbial “average Joe” behind the winning spots is not as average as we might first believe. According to Ad Lab, this year’s winners, and winners from previous years, have come from the ranks of creative professions very near to the TV advertising business. Some of them have been film makers, producers, musicians, and even creative directors. For now, at least, the storybook ending where the little guy finally bests the Madison Avenue advertising machine remains, well, a fairytale.
The board of advertising for Doritos is fantastic. They interact with their customers and encourage them to send in videos to see if they’re ideas can be on tv. Doritos commercials are the commercials i look for at the Superbowl because they are so creative and so funny and they represent a broad audience. Overall the fact that they let the customers get involved is excellent for their company as well as commercials. Which is a major contributing factor to the success of Doritos as a company, that and they have really good chips.
I agree with Jose. CGS is great for the ads on TV. I would totally switch over to Allstate Insurance just because Mayhem was hilarious and I love those commercials, sadly I cant afford it though! I also love the Doritos commericials, I can recall some of them right now without even resorting to YouTube. I dont like Dorritos, but I do like their advertising. They are unique, creative, and relate to the consumer. I hate when I see companies trying to copy other commericials from their competitor. It is lazy and not appealing. Get some marketing in your business and stop being cheap! For example, Direct TV now has a commercial with an Asian fellow with a large Panda and gold everywhere. I thought it was going to be another Comcast commercial, until the very end. Comcast had made several ads with a man that owns everything gold, and a mini giraffe as a pet. They also had one with the Asian from the Hangover being..silly… . Get your own ideas.
I think Consumer Generated Media is very advantagous to the companies that choose to use it. Dorritos for example benifitted greatley from the ads. The basic premis of Consumer Generated Media is that two minds are better than one; or two million are better than however many crerative thinkers Dorritos has thinking of new commercials.