Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, has just
crowdsourced a TV ad for his high profile campaign. Apparently, he and his campaign organizers were mighty impressed by the
Frito Lay Doritos Superbowl ad, which was put together by a bunch of amateurs but went on to be broadcast to millions of people during the primest of prime time TV.
The winning ad for the Mitt campaign has yet to be chosen, as the deadline for ad submission was only yesterday (110 videos were uploaded in total, so not too bad). But I'm sure whatever they end up with will be more authentic than the ads you usually get in a presidential campaign. So hats off to Mitt and all for trying to do something a little less conventional and, dare I say it, democratic.
I just wonder why we haven't seen much
participation marketing, crowdsourcing, or whatever you want to call it, in the cards space. There's a lot of opportunity here — crowdsourced ads can generate real excitement, help people to engage with companies, and set those companies apart from their competitors. But as yet, and as ever, very little noise at all.