Categories: Articles

Apple Turns Real Consumer Generated Content Into Thirty Second Spot

Check out this piece of Consumer Generated Content from Nick Haley – an eighteen-year-old university student from Leeds in the UK. iPod Touch Ad – Nick Haley:

Apple checked it out too. They liked it so much that they brought Haley over from his home in the UK to work with their advertising agency in Los Angeles and re-shoot the content as a thirty-second spot. The iPod Touch ad will appear in the coming weeks all over network television.

The spot has been getting some serious attention, including this article in The New York Times, Student’s Ad Gets A Remake, And Makes The Big Time.

"Consumers creating commercials ‘is part of this brave new world we live in,’ said Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA Worldwide, based in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Playa del Rey. ‘It’s an exciting new format for brands to communicate with their audiences,’ Mr. Clow said. ‘People’s relationship with a brand is becoming a dialog, not a monolog.’"

I like that "becoming a dialog, not a monolog" line. Sounds very Social Media.

My big like for this is that Haley made this piece of content for one reason only: he loved his iPod Touch. He didn’t do this to win a contest. He didn’t do this for the YouTube traffic (well, maybe he did it a little bit for that reason).

This also fondly reminds me of George Master’s iPod Mini spot. It also got tons of traffic (though, when this piece was released there was no YouTube and Apple did not change it into an official Apple spot).

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.