Impressed with the eloquence and creativity seen from its customers’ product reviews (example one, example two, example three), Amazon is now turning to its customer base to help produce its next commercial. Specifically, Amazon.com is asking aspiring filmmakers and the rest of us to help create a short film or video advertising Amazon.com. The program entitled “Your Amazon Ad Contest” asks users to submit a 30 second TV commercial video for Amazon.com between 6/8 – 7/17. A panel of judges will then select five finalists and pick one of them as the Jury Prize winner. Then between 8/24 and 9/6, millions of Amazon customers will be invited to watch and rate the five finalists’ videos. The filmmaker who receives the highest average rating from eligible votes will receive the Audience prize. Finally on 9/21, the Jury and Audience Prize winners will each receive a $10,000 gift card and a screening of their ad at the 15th Annual Gen Art Film Festival in New York City. If you win both…you get both prizes.

The contest page goes on to ask participants to be creative – “show us anything, from how fast you can place an order to how excited your dog gets when he sees the delivery guy.” The program includes a partnership with Withoutabox which offers various tools, including film production and promotion services.

It was only a few short years ago that Ad Age (echoing Time Magazine) declared the Agency of the Year to be you. I guess you’ve now been hired by Amazon.com to produce a new commercial– Congratulations and welcome to the new world of participatory marketing!

It is definitely a new world and the Amazon program is another example of how participatory marketing is challenging traditional approaches. Amazon is one company that has fully embraced participatory marketing and is putting the customer in control of everything…from posting reviews, to selecting what products go on sale (remember Amazon’s Ready, Set, Go campaign last year), to how to best communicate what the Amazon.com brand means. For that, my hat goes off to the brave folks at Amazon.com – keep up the good work. Let this be a lesson to the rest of us that relinquishing control and putting your customers in charge can be a very, very good thing.

For more information about the contest or to enter – click here.