Commentary

Fans Collaborate With Brand On Silk Soymilk Ads

When an established brand alters the taste of its product, things can go really well or send consumers fleeing to find an alternative brand. Judging by the YouTube comments on Silk Soymilk’s brand channel, feedback is split down the middle.

On the flip side, consumers seemed to enjoy the campaign supporting the flavor change. The Silk Tastemaster Challenge launched on the brand’s Facebook page with a video describing the overall concept: fans described the taste of Silk Soymilk and a new flavor, Silk Iced Latte, and a handful of participants saw their Facebook responses come to life in an interpretive online video.

One fan description was selected a week and uniquely interpreted by a range of characters. For example, a Silk Soymilk quote was acted out by an interpretive dancer dressed in white spandex. A description of Silk Iced Latte was told through the creation of an ice sculpture. Each video shows the name and picture of the winning entrant, alongside the copy.

My favorite part of the campaign was the two intro videos created to describe the Tastemaster Challenge. In them, a man dubbed Mr. Smooth sang fan descriptions in a silky-smooth voice. It reminded me of the time when Old Spice man created short videos responding to individual blog posts or Tweets. Like this one.

The winning videos will be used online, on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and 30-second pre-rolls.

According to James Gassel, president of digital agency, Evolution Bureau, the biggest challenge of the campaign was ”securing permission from fans whose quotes we love. There have been some awesome submissions from a creative perspective that we've had to let go because we weren't able to get in contact with them and thus weren't clear to feature them in ad content from a legal perspective. Once we lock a submission, it takes us two weeks to turn a fan interpretation into a video.”

1 comment about "Fans Collaborate With Brand On Silk Soymilk Ads".
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  1. Dan Bergeron from Napkin Labs, June 4, 2013 at 1:05 p.m.

    Great to see fans getting involved in feedback on new flavors. Also, UGC is always a great way to help promote a brand.

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