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Companies Face Problems With Consumer-Made Ads

The New York Times , Tuesday, May 29, 2007 10:15 AM

While inviting the public to create commercials for a brand seems like a cheap and easy way to get attention, there are big drawbacks to letting just anyone try. For instance, among the videos H. J. Heinz is garnering on YouTube is one where a teen rubs ketchup over his face and puts pickles on his eyes. Others feature folks chugging straight from the bottle or shaving with the product -- and ends up looking a lot like blood.

Heinz plans to pick the best five and show them on TV.

Other companies using similar approaches include Pepsi, Jeep and Sprint as they mix populist appeal with a kind of sweepstakes. But they may find that inviting consumers to create ads can be more costly and time-consuming than doing the work themselves. "That's kind of a popular misnomer that, somehow, it's cheaper to do this," says David Ciesinski, vice president for Heinz Ketchup. "On the contrary, it's at least as expensive, if not more."

Read the whole story at The New York Times »

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