You No Longer Have to Spend Big Bucks to Get a Great Commercial

Photo credit: Adweek.com

Most people assume that extending their brand’s reach to the masses will be astronomically expensive, costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. General opinion suggests that the more embraceable the brand messaging is, the more it will cost. However, this is no longer necessarily the case.

In this day and age, brand messages travel at the speed of a click, with content being consumed on an array of different devices, and across platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Google+. Create compelling messaging in the right format, and it won’t be your brand doing the heavy lifting. Instead, the people your message reaches will evangelize your brand through all of their own communication channels. 

Catalyzing word of mouth ‘buzz’ is the new, smarter and less expensive way to generate and promote brand awareness. In today's beautifully integrated world, it’s more viable than ever to create compelling content economically. Crowdsourcing king, Frito-Lay, developed 'Crash the Super Bowl', an annual commercial competition wherein entrants submit their homegrown commercials for a chance at a monetary win, and the chance to see their work aired during that year's game. This is a win-win situation for the Doritos brand that enables them to cut production costs almost entirely (apart from airtime, and the monetary portion of the prize package), all while dramatically increasing brand awareness, community, and loyalty.

In another campaign, Chevy partnered with MoFilm’s creative community, inviting filmmakers to create their own 30 and 60-second spots highlighting ‘significant human moments’ with the Chevy brand, with the winning commercial airing alongside other Chevy spots during the Academy Awards telecast. The ultimate example of ‘spend less, win big,’ though, is a Tesla commercial called ‘Modern Spaceship’ that two recent college grads — James Khabushani, 25, and RJ Collins, 24 — made on their own for $1,500. Tesla and CEO Elon Musk loved the spec commercial, and the project garnered tons of publicity for James and RJ, who created the commercial in one 12-hour day using their friend’s home and Tesla Model S.

These case studies stand as a true testament to the fact that you simply no longer need to spend big bucks to create quality brand awareness. An evolving and innovative generation is using technology to produce content of the highest quality at an extremely low cost, and usergenerated content is a wonderful way to build a communal relationship with your marketplace. We’d love to help your brand shine, and be über-sharable across platforms … affordably.