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Free Ads Can Be Really Expensive

Posted by Zonk on Sun May 27, 2007 04:15 AM
from the inverse-kinematics dept.
Media Businesses The Internet
An anonymous reader writes "Companies are finding that this 'Web 2.0' user participation thing sometimes isn't all its cracked up to be. The New York Times reports on the efforts of big companies to harness consumer enthusiasm for assistance with advertising. Heinz, for example, is running a campaign asking users to submit videos using their product in inventive ways. The problem, of course, is that most of the submissions are utterly terrible. The result is a headache in terms of quality control and making use of the turned in submissions. 'Heinz hopes to show more than five of them, if there are enough that convey a positive, appealing message about Heinz ketchup, he said. But advertising executives who have seen some of the entries say that Heinz may be hard pressed to find any that it is proud to run on television in September. "These are just so bad," said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive of the Kaplan Thaler Group, an advertising agency in New York that is not involved with Heinz's contest. One of the most viewed Heinz videos -- seen, at last count, more than 12,800 times -- ends with a close-up of a mouth with crooked, yellowed teeth. When Ms. Kaplan Thaler saw it, she wondered, "Were his teeth the result of, maybe, too much Heinz?"'"
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  • Oh no, the people in your free commercial didn't have perfect actors teeth. Welcome to the real world Heinz, what did you expect to get for free from amatures?

  • Subject matter (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Raptoer (984438) on Sunday May 27 2007, @04:23AM (#19290381)
    Perhaps the "free" part of it is to blame, maybe its more that people that make good videos don't like Heinz enough for make an ad for them?
    I mean would you really spend your free time making a video for a ketchup company?

    • Re:Subject matter (Score:5, Interesting)

      by suv4x4 (956391) on Sunday May 27 2007, @04:34AM (#19290417)
      Perhaps the "free" part of it is to blame, maybe its more that people that make good videos don't like Heinz enough for make an ad for them?
      I mean would you really spend your free time making a video for a ketchup company?

      Indeed. I'm sure if Apple got that contest out, they'd get amazing submissions. But there's only so much inspiration and affection you may have for a bottle of ketchup.

      The guys who thought up this contest didn't see that far I guess. Well, there's always a way out: hire one or more ad agencies incognito, produce 5 amateur-looking (but good) ads, submit them to the contest.. let those win and tadaaa!

      Victory.
      • Some ad agency start ups might want to do just that.

         
      • "hire one or more ad agencies incognito, produce 5 amateur-looking (but good) ads, submit them to the contest.. let those win and tadaaa!"

        alliwantforchristmasisabottleofheinz.com?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by multisync (218450)

          it's only a particularly rabid and vocal minority that gives the impression that Apple users are somehow 'different' (more creative).

          Are you suggesting otherwise? Because "different, creative people" are very clearly a demographic Apple Computers aggressively markets to. Many of the creative people I know use them and like them, and lots of people I know want one. My girlfriend is using a little ibook I borrowed from a friend right now to check her email, and she loves it. Cause it doesn't look like some ge

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, But will it blend?

      • Re:Subject matter (Score:5, Insightful)

        by zappepcs (820751) on Sunday May 27 2007, @06:06AM (#19290821) Journal
        You have exactly the tack that they need to be thinking, but won't. Use the new media or rather exploit it without expecting others to do all your work. Will it blend would be a good place to start. Will a bottle of Heinz blend? hmmmmm

        That is what viral marketing is about, not asking others to do your work for you. Produce something that people will watch for whatever bizarre reason, and let it go...

        "for just 39 cents per day, you can keep a needy hotdog or hamburger clothed in Heinz ketchup." Now do a YouTube commercial type video on that premise. Advertising agencies are only good about 10% of the time. Web 2.0 has them all flummoxed.

    • Re:Subject matter (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bloke down the pub (861787) on Sunday May 27 2007, @05:09AM (#19290585)
      I wouldn't. Perhaps somebody who just graduated in a related field and who wants to get hired might.
    • If you want it done for free or dirt cheap, then it definitely has to be something that people are interested in. Even if it's for something that people are interested in, it doesn't always net good results. I think the Decemberists had a contest where you would win a camcorder and a computer. The problem is, if you were any good at video work, you probably had a better camcorder and a better computer already. I've seen a couple videos mocking them as being cheap bastards.

      I don't really buy the "it's go

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Tassach (137772)

      I mean would you really spend your free time making a video for a ketchup company?

      I might seriously think about it if I were an unknown ad agency or a filmmaker trying to break in to the commercial biz. Winning a contest like this would be a good way to get discovered,demonstrate your skills, and build a reputation.

      It might not be cool, or artistically pure, or whatever criteria art snobs use to judge their work, but there's a metric asston of money to be made advertising everyday products. Ketchup isn't an exciting subject material, but everything you do can't be "art" (which is

  • Variatio on Sturgeon's law. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hognoxious (631665) on Sunday May 27 2007, @04:30AM (#19290411) Homepage Journal

    Companies are finding that this 'Web 2.0' user participation thing sometimes isn't all its cracked up to be.
    90% of web 2.0 stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be.
  • The whole set, from the 'creative idea' to ending up here - an excellent example of 'Progressive Stupidity'.

    CC.
  • Sure, we can all RTFG, but the blurb really should include a link to all the videos [youtube.com].

    • A few good links (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nymz (905908) on Sunday May 27 2007, @05:56AM (#19290789) Journal
      There are too many crappy ones, so here's a few that are less crappy.

      The Cute Kids - 23 [youtube.com]
      The Girlfriend - 42 [youtube.com]
      The Fisherman - 45 [youtube.com]
      The Punster - 62 [youtube.com]
      The Ketchup Pass - 65 [youtube.com]
      The Wrestling Brothers - 67 [youtube.com]
      The Dog Food (animated) - 72 [youtube.com]
      The Rappers - 79 [youtube.com]
      The Ninja Kids - 126 [youtube.com]
      The Dirty Joke - 208 [youtube.com]
      The Behind the Scenes - 241 [youtube.com]
      The Hot Hot Hot Girl - 291 [youtube.com]
      • Am I the only one who would prefer a link to the crappiest videos? I could use a good laugh this morning :-). I've watched a few from the beginning, and #4 is just painfully bad so far.
      • A commercial that associates a wholesome, all-American product with having a threesome?
        A commercial that ends in a teenage squirting a friend with ketchup all over his face?
        These "less crappy" links are pretty horrible.

        Thanks for the links. Now I understand what the article was talking about.
        Seems to me that if you wanted to pick up a quick $57,000, it wouldn't be too hard to come up with a clever idea that also gives positive association with the product.
      • Okay, who else here only watched the last one?!

  • Greedy advertisers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by syousef (465911) on Sunday May 27 2007, @04:59AM (#19290529) Journal
    Let me get this straight. These companies want you to make an ad for them, for free on a zero dollar budget and they're complaining that the quality is crap?

    Morons.
    • Well, think of it this way. If you are a budding filmmaker and want to have something on your resume, isn't this a good way of trying for it?

      "Amateur advertisement for Heinz shown on national TV among 5 winners"

      That's a pretty good lil advertisement for yourself to get into film school!

      You'd think there'd be a couple of people out there who would have some talent and more importantly PRIDE in their work. As it turns out, most people who use the internet and participate in this stuff are soul-less, talentles

    • Re:Greedy advertisers (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Aladrin (926209) on Sunday May 27 2007, @06:22AM (#19290877)
      That's okay, they clearly haven't watched the professional ads lately, anyhow. Most of them are complete crap, too. They send the wrong message, they have annoying sound and video, and they play way too often. I find it hard to believe this 'horrible' videos could do any worse than they already are.

      Sending the wrong message is actually my biggest gripe about most commercials these days. Most of them try to show an 'average' person, but miss the mark end up at 'loser'. The end result is that 'product X is for losers' instead of their intended message. They even hit on this about the yellow teeth in the video, questioning if the message is that the bad dental hygiene was caused by their own product.

      I'm not against commercials any more than I'm against movies or music. I'm against BAD commercials, movies, and music. Good commercials can actually be 30 seconds of humor, or awe, or heaven forbid, information you actually care about. (Cingular, Geico (old commercials), Apple.) The world is a bit short on awe and informative commercials, and I can't think of a single one now.
      • You must be talking about the ads with Smilin' Bob for some 'natural male enhancement' product that airs just about every 15 minutes locally on a specific channel. Funny thing is, I can remember the horrid music and the rediculous, stupid face, but I can't remember the name of the product.
        • No problem. If you decide to buy the product, you know which channel to watch and in about 15 minutes, you will be ready to pace your order with the knowledge tha soon, you will be smilin, too.

      • Re:Greedy advertisers (Score:4, Funny)

        by sjames (1099) on Sunday May 27 2007, @10:13AM (#19292099) Homepage

        Most of them are complete crap, too. They send the wrong message,

        I'm amazed how little advertisers think about the message their musical choices send. A PILL commercial with a bit of "We're not Gonna take it" in the background? Well, if they're not gonna take those pills, I sure won't! Then a commercial for "clean" coal with "Sixteen Tons" playing in the background? Why would I want to support exploitation of workers?

    • Re:Greedy advertisers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by indiechild (541156) on Sunday May 27 2007, @09:15AM (#19291763)
      The companies (well, Heinz, in this case) aren't complaining. You didn't read the blurb or TFA, but that's OK. It's the advertising agencies who aren't involved who are complaining that the quality is crap. Pot, meet fucking kettle.

      Gee, an ad agency thinks that user generated content which is competing with them (indirectly, or directly) is shit. Big fucking surprise.

      Heinz already states that soliciting user generated content and then sorting it all out isn't cheap, and is at least as expensive as hiring a marketing/ad agency. No wonder the ad agencies are scared -- that's money that they lost out on.

      It's a completely stupid and blindingly obvious news story, filled with loaded statements.
  • Small businesses that don't have much money to spend on marketing and advertising can really benefit from "free" advertising techniques (stuff like this [yedda.com]). Large enterprises have usually only succesfully ridden free campaign waves when they had already been in place (e.g. diet coke and mentos). Its much more difficult than it seems.
  • First of all, what did they expect. As Amateur Production is by default, amateur, it isn't going to be professional quality.

    Not only that, but the product they are using is flawed as well. Had the product been something very expensive, exclusive, or targeted to a select audience (perhaps amateur directors, script writers, graphic artists, or something...) they would have seen at least some creativity, but this is Heinz, a freakin' ketchup (or catsup as some may prefer).

    And for those wishing to see the video

    • Re:So every YouTube video is Oscar quality? (Score:4, Informative)

      by owlnation (858981) on Sunday May 27 2007, @06:36AM (#19290935)

      Not only that, but the product they are using is flawed as well.
      And not only that - but food and product photography is as hard as it gets photographically.

      It is a highly skilled niche job that most professional photographers and cinematographers do not know how to do. You need to know how to get the right colors, temperatures and lighting to make food look like food. Often it's just faked too. For example, most whisky bottle shots you see contain tea, not whisky, because real whisky photographs to look like a bottle of urine.

  • Web 2.0: Utter failure? (Score:5, Funny)

    by philovivero (321158) on Sunday May 27 2007, @05:19AM (#19290627) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, this web 2.0 thing is just crap. I mean, you have a multimillion dollar company, and you try to get a bunch of people on the internet excited about your stupid sauce product, and no-one seems to have any enthusiasm for your boring corporate image whatsoever.

    All eight people on the internet that ARE excited about your stupid sauce product are just mediocre media creators without the creative vision required to make your stupid sauce product look hip and cool.

    Obviously we should just move directly on to web 3.0, where everyone is fucking stoked about sauce products. The top DJs of the world will do entire sets themed on ketchup, mayonnaise, and mustard. Beautiful runway models will gyrate and make kissing faces at your stupid sauce product.

    Hells yeh, babies. No more of this web 2.0 BS. It just wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
  • At least 50% of the population is of below average intelligence, and typically, 90% of everything is crap.
    • I read someone's signature, saying that "99.9% of people have more than the average number of legs."

      If you said that exactly half the population was of below-average intelligence, it would mean that you're assuming a standard gaussian distribution of intelligence. But why say "at least"? That implies that intelligence might not follow a precise standard distribution, but that the deviation can only be in one direction.

      Ah, I love the smell of gratuitous pedantry in the morning.

  • No surprise (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wrmrxxx (696969) on Sunday May 27 2007, @05:39AM (#19290729)
    I'm not surprised that they're not satisfied. It's pretty hard to improve on the free Heinz ads that have already been made: The Goodies Beans Boy ads [youtube.com]. I saw these when they were first aired, and they were so effective that I still find myself saying "Get it right!" to people now and then.

  • I've waited years for this (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joebert (946227) on Sunday May 27 2007, @06:15AM (#19290845) Homepage
    When I was in 5th grade, I waited untill the last minute to do my science project.
    My mom & her friend decided I was going to see which brand of ketchup dripped the slowest.

    I'm proud to say, Heinz ketchup dripped the slowest & thus was the thickest ketchup.


    Mark me whatever you want, but this is proof that my shitty last minute science project was truely ahead of its' time & I should have got a fucking A++. :)
  • ... ads for free....meaning the ones who are to buy the product are the ones to create the ads for it, without pay.

    Did I miss something or are they just trying to emulate the software development process.

    1) get others to come up with ideas for free.
    2) sell it to them.
    3) profit
  • Unless they said they will use the clips unedited and without alteration (and if they did say that, they should fire their lawyers...nobody says that), they can do a bit of digital editing to make their ad appeal a bit more to their needs. The contest fine print undoubtedly says something along the lines of "All submissions become the property of Heinz Inc.", so I don't see what the problem is. Even if there was a 'horrible outcry' over their 'deception', it's has nothing negative to do with their actual

  • polished fake world of TV (Score:3, Insightful)

    by drDugan (219551) on Sunday May 27 2007, @11:00AM (#19292431) Homepage
    Silly Ad exectutives, this just goes to show just how fake things are that are "typically" on TV and other ad mediums.

    <start bitter rant>

    Go walk down the street and look inside someone's home and you don't see the Better Homes version of a living space, or anything like what is shown on ads.

    Take a close-up face photo of 10 people on the street, and you see that the image we've been sold by ads is completely fake. People simply do not look like they do on tv and in magazines. Lately this has gotten worse with the fsck-doll 23yo models reading the news on cnn and fox.

    The whole image and world these ad-oriented people live in is fake - their whole career is about overtly lying to people to get them to buy stuff they don't want or need. "Boo hoo, the real world won't sell our red-colored corn syrup mixture with processed tomato paste..." yes, boo hoo.

    </rant>

  • Maybe they're just shocked at finally finding out who the core market for ketchup really is. It's not those thin and toned muscular people like on TV. That's a rare breed, I've never even met one myself, though I see them on TV and in the movies. It's your good ole' fat, diabetic, round-bellied, yellow-toothed American. Slaving away at some crappy job, coming home exhausted, and collapsing with the TV and Jim Beam. That's who is guzzling down those giant Walmart-sized ketchup bottles. More power to 'em!
    • Aside from your humorous dig, you do bring up a really good point. It's all about creating or strengthening a brand and building up a community (or cult, as you might say). I don't think Heinz will be able to build up an army of zealous ketchup lovers, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.

      I don't see this as a failure to grasp Web 2.0. It's an attempt to grasp Web 2.0. I don't think Heinz was under any illusion that this was going to be free creation of advertising. It's the NYT's failure to grasp W
    • Correction: Why should customers do Heinz's ad agency's job?

      It's a fair question, but unless people are just really really bad at calculating the odds of getting the first prize (likely), then people are probably getting their compensation in other forms. My guess is it's the same motivation that drives so many to try out for reality TV shows, or bloviate on Slashdot: the desire to be a little famous. I mean, it's not like there was this deep, vibrant well of grassroots ketchup-love waiting to be tapped.

    • companies shouldnt expect their customers to do their work- even for a prize.
      The Slashdot redesign comes to mind here... *grin*

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