"I" of the Consumer

The world has changed, we all know that.  The internet was the first culprit, putting more power into the consumer's hands than ever before.  But social media is today's culprit.

Social, a word that's driving marketers around the world crazy.  Some have embraced the idea and continue to expirement ways to leverage it.  Some have run from the idea, and are finding their options ever more limited.

Callaway Golf, and their ad agency, Eleven, have put together a very interesting campaign that aims to leverage the social universe to create better ads.  If you took a look at espn.com yesterday, you might have noticed that Callaway was the primary advertiser (more likely you overlooked the ads completely as most people do).  But what you probably did not notice, is that the ads were mostly a call for more ads.

By that I mean that if you expanded the ad, you were shown one of 4 quotes, with a part of the quote intentionally left blank.  Callaway was asking users (consumers) to finish the phrase, and submit their personalized ads via Facebook.

Not only is this a way to create better ads, but the real reason to do something like this is that it's not the ads that matter anymore.  By making the ads user generated, you are creating something to talk about and share.  I'm more likely to share an ad that I created than a cool ad that I happened upon online.

The ads work because they're social. Congrats to Callaway on trying something new!