Superbowl XLI: Sort of Consumer Generated

The Super Bowl XLI ads this year will have more than a fair share of consumer generated campaigns. However, after looking at a few of the brands touting such endeavors, it appears to me that consumer generated content is far from what these advertisers want. Instead, they're looking for imitation.

In particular, take a look at the Doritos "Crash the Super Bowl" contest. They solicited "fan created" commercials, and are now allowing the general public to vote on 5 finalists, the winner of which will be aired during the Super Bowl. What becomes immediately apparent to me is that these 5 finalists aren't your "run-of-the-mill" consumer. No, these are people who are either already in the ad industry, or some related film/television profession. If you were to run any of these commercials on TV without telling people they were "fan created", no one would know the difference. Go back and look at other popular consumer generated video contests, and you'll see the same thing.

I don't know about you, but this seems to run counter to the whole idea of embracing consumer generated content. Is it that these advertisers are actually afraid to show real, homegrown content? Or is it possible that the average consumer just doesn't feel like making a video about Doritos?