• International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, August 1, 2006 1 PM

A growing trend: marketers are turning to consumers equipped with video cameras and other communications gear to create ads for them. The move stems from two complementary factors. First, the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace.com and video-sharing services like YouTube.com, where amateurs can post videos. Second, the advertisers' constant search for new ways to engage consumers. Another element in the mix is user-generated content. It has become so prevalent that many consumers are making unauthorized ads. To capitalize on the inevitable, marketers have decided to encourage people to make ads, hoping to create a little buzz for their products or services. For example, in a European campaign for its Bravia line of televisions, Sony plans to encourage people to create variations on a new TV spot shot last week in Glasgow. Then it will post them on a special Web site. The bottom line is that marketers have accepted the popularity of user-generated content and social networking. They acknowledge that controlling messages on the Internet is often impossible. "Without having complete chaos, is there a way to have controlled chaos?" asks Rishad Tobaccowala, chief executive of Denuo, a unit of Publicis that specializes in new technology.

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