Shake Gently - advertising technology blog

Advertising goes social: BootB, Zooppa and others

Has creative dried up? I don’t think so, but the idea of casting a social net to bring in some new creative is a novel idea.

Will it revolutionize the agency model? I don’t think it will be that dramatic, but it will have an impact, especially for organizations with a very small budget (like a nonprofit) or a very big budget (Fortune 500).

Why the two budget extremes?

I believe the small organizations will benefit from the program generating interest about the organization itself, just as much as the award winning ad.

For big organizations, I think they will invest enough in promoting the contest and offer a big enough incentive to get some quality submissions.

But, here is where I find the rub. Any brief that you publish is out in the open. Going to launch a new project or change strategy? The last place you want to announce it is out in the open. You expose too much to the competition.

But, I believe that organizations such as BootB and Zooppa will be another resource in the advertising tool belt.

I have been tracking Zooppa for quite a while now. Here is an overview:

Zooppa originated from the idea of creating a space for social advertising through user generated content.

It is committed to the vision of real people and real companies conducting business in a creative and rewarding viral context. This means stimulating the creative talent of those who have no voice in the traditional advertising setting.

Zooppa partners with international companies to sponsor their brand through Zooppa’s competitions. Based on the briefs the companies provide, users are invited to create their own commercials for that brand. Participation in a Zooppa contest can take many forms: designing an animated sequence or creating a print ad with the company logo, writing a script or concept for a potential ad, or actually shooting their own video.

For each company that Zooppa partners with, a new contest is launched for users to compete in.
Users are also encouraged to create their ads using concepts or scripts posted by others. As an incentive to share one another’s creativity, Zooppa rewards this type of collaboration with a Bonus Team Prize.

Once users have uploaded their contributions, it is up to them to decide the winners. Users rate the ads and it is based on these ratings that Zooppa awards the cash prizes.

What makes Zooppa unique is how the winners are rewarded. Each Zoop$ that users earn are equivalent to real US dollars. Once users have accumulated a minimum of 1.000 Zoop$, they can convert their Zoop$ into a real cash pay out.

Zooppa is, therefore, a new advertising model based on the Internet and the possibility to connect people from all over the world by putting them in contact with another.

Whether in fact, the companies that sponsor the contests are interested in using the posted materials in future advertising campaigns on other mediums, Zooppa plays an important role as an intermediary between the authors of the content and the companies. In this way, Zooppa guarantees a pricing range from a minimum to a maximum value, in which the interests of the two parties (the users and the companies) can be satisfied.

Below is some information on BootB via Martin Lindstrom’s Weekly Video Reports (click through to see the video):

New Online “Pitch Engine” Connects Marketers and Creatives
BootB Circumvents Traditional Agency System
PARIS (BRANDFlash) — Launched in December, BootB.com is having a go at revolutionizing the way marketers and creatives connect with each other. It calls itself a “pitching engine” and its goal is to eliminate the middleman between marketers and creative ideas. Marketers post their requests for marketing concepts, and creatives anywhere in the world can respond and compete for the work with their own ideas. Here, Martin Lindstrom interviews BootB CEO Pier Ludovico Bancale about his new online idea auction. Among the marketers that have so far posted idea requests are Auchan, a French-based supermarket chain with stores through Europe, China and Russia; Ferrero, the Italy-based chocolate company; Lego Holdings, the Denmark toy company; and Peugeot, France’s top-selling automotive brand.

Technorati Tags: BootB, Zooppa, advertising, social, creative, idea, ad, marketing