The so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon, reflected in the popularity of social networking sites like MySpace.com and video-sharing services like YouTube.com, has created a new breed of amateur creators of advertising.
Few ad campaigns are considered complete anymore without a prominent Internet presence, preferably with an interactive element to draw in consumers and get them to “engage” with the brand.
Increasingly, this interactivity takes the form of customizing part of a marketing campaign; in some cases, advertisers are going even further and allowing consumers to make the ads themselves.
In a European campaign for its Bravia line of televisions, Sony plans to encourage people to create variations on a new television spot, which was shot in Glasgow, and post them on a special Web site.
So far, few ads created by amateurs have made it beyond the Internet, though homemade spots have been made for Current TV, a cable television channel in the United States devoted to user-generated content. To many marketers, handing control to consumers still seems antithetical to the idea of advertising.
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