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.

Today I debuted a new monthly column on eM+C called Email Marketing Strategies and Tactics Exposed.  The goal of this column is to highlight exceptional email communications and, more importantly, to dissect the individual components that make them work so well. 

 

Why this column?  During my years heading up marketing and strategy for Bigfoot Interactive, I used to do quarterly meetings with some of our largest accounts.  These meetings often involved a review of marketplace trends, research findings and competitive/campaign assessments, including best practices collected from the hundreds of campaigns we tracked.  This last bit is what got clients leaning forward in their seats, and it wasn’t long before clients requested more “real life examples” to discuss and learn from. The next thing I knew, I was doing a client tour around the country highlighting the very best of the best in email marketing.  This tour became a franchise for our company because it took all the talk about industry best practices and what marketers should be doing, and made it tangible and actionable.  I’ve always thought it would make a great column, and so, with this opportunity from eM+C it has now come to life. 

 

Why Now?   In my mind – success in ’09 will be founded on two critical concepts.  1. Marketers must push themselves to do better.  If you don’t have a comprehensive strategy for lifecycle communications – you should, if your not integrating email with other marketing efforts – you must, if you not leveraging best practices and analytics to optimize results – your toast.  This column will help you do all that and more.  2.  Evolution and innovation – the market and consumers are changing and evolving.  To build on success and remain relevant, marketers must embrace the notion of marketing with customers rather than at them.  The Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) was founded on that principle and it is our hope we can use this association as a platform to help marketers build innovative marketing programs that engage the recipient in such a way that it extends the success and reach of your messaging across the social internet. 

 

It is my hope is that you will find eM+C series of evaluations beneficial as you think about your own email communications.  Over the course of the next 12 months we will highlighting the best of the best and by this time next year my hope is to have built the ultimate email communications playbook.  Enjoy the column and if you have or come across an email communications program worth writing about, drop me a line at info@thepmn.org. 

'Til Next Time

Building innovative marketing programs requires chutzpah!  You’ve got to take chances, be willing to shake things up and try new things.  At some organizations this can be difficult.  But you don’t have to change the world all at once – in fact it is always best to take a crawl, walk, run approach. Start with one program, test the waters and communicate success.  Look to other innovative programs for inspiration and then build something and make it your own.  Part of what we want to do with this blog is showcase some examples and be a source of inspiration for our members.  Well, here’s another example of an innovative participatory marketing program in action – Amazon’s Customers Vote program. 

 

Amazon’s Customers Vote is an innovative shopping program where customers vote for, and receive a chance to compete for their most “ridiculous deals” during the holiday season.  It reminds me a lot of American Express’ “My Wish List” effort and it is a shining example of participatory marketing in action.  Here’s how it works.

 

Step 1: Visitors browse six rounds of deals and vote for the ones they’d like to buy at an amazing price.

Step 2: Participants check their email the day before each buying round to see if they’ve been randomly selected to participate in the ability to purchase the product.

Step 3: If selected, participants are invited to come back for a chance to purchase.

 

Here is a sampling of some of the deals:

- Samsung 46 inch 1080p HDTV: List Price: $1,599, Winning Price: $699 with 250 Units available.

- TomTom Go 730T: List Price $449, Winning Price: $245 with 1,000 units available.

 

The result? Thousands of consumers talking about the great deal they got at Amazon, thousands more wishing they got selected and over 500 message board posts.  And what was the glue that helped keep this participatory marketing program going? Relevant, timely email communications that engaged a willing audience.

 

‘Til Next Time.