You know those somewhat annoying commercials for Trident where different weirdos talk about “getting paid in gum?”  Well Trident ran an assignment through Poptent for user-made ads based on that same premise.  The results were announced last week and the selected videos are far from annoying.  In fact, I think they are BETTER and more creative than the actual “Get Paid in Layers” commercials that Trident airs on TV.  Trident selected two videos and purchased them for $7,500 each.  You can see both ads here but this is the one that I think is especially awesome.

PURCHASED BY TRIDENT.  Price: $7,500

Was that great or what?  “The Sword” is a perfect example of great “User Generated Content.” (UGC)  It’s quirky, it’s clever, it’s funny, it’s unpredictable and perhaps best of all (for Trident) it has precious “viral appeal.”  It’s so unique and entertaining that it genuinely makes me want to pass it along to other people.  And hey, that’s what I’m doing right now!

The video is also well made but it’s not too slick.  What do I mean by that?  Well, I’ve noticed that one key ingredient in the success of a User-Generated ad is that the viewer should be able to tell that the video WAS NOT made by professionals.  I think that when a video is a little rough around the edges it feels more special.  Any team of well-funded writers and filmmakers can do their take on “quirky.” (case in point, Trident’s official “Get Paid in gum” commercials)  And while those big-budget ads play fine on TV, I think high production values can actually hurt videos that are meant to be viewed on the web.  Internet viewers seem to want their User-Generated Content to look like User-Generated Content.  In robotics and in Computer Animation the term “The Uncanny Valley” is used to describe a theory that I think fits the UGC phenomenon pretty well.  Here’s how wikipedia defines The Uncanny Valley:

“The theory holds that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.”

So for example do you remember the movie, The Polar Express?  It was a big flop and one reason audiences stayed away is because the CG characters were designed to look super-realistic.  The results were creepy as hell!  Human beings have a much more positive reaction to less realistic CG characters.  (like the semi-cartoony humans in The Incredibles)  When human facsimiles start to look too real, people get turned off by these “soulless” monsters and likability ratings plummet sharply.

And the same thing can sort of be said for User-Generated Content.  When a user-made ad gets too close to looking like a professionally made ad I think viewers are turned off. Take for example this video that was also submitted to Poptent’s Trident assignment.  This spot actually made the finals but Trident didn’t purchase it:



Out of the 142 videos submitted to Poptent’s Trident assignment, “Grease Monkey Business” was almost certainly one of the slickest, most professional-looking ads of the bunch. But there’s something that bothers me about this video.  It just has no…heart.  It feels like a facsimile of a “real” commercial.  This is an example of a User-Generated video that crossed into the UGC Uncanny Vally.  It tries very hard to look professional and somehow, that makes it seem kind of creepy.  Instead of looking like a User-Generated ad it looks like a low-budget TV commercial.  Except the writing, the graphics, the acting and the goofy Voice Over aren’t on the same level as the production quality.  So there’s a disconnect in the viewers mind: Is this an amazing looking homemade ad or a poorly produced professional ad?

Normally I wouldn’t single out a non-winning or non-purchased video like this and explain why I think it wasn’t selected by the sponsor.   But one of the producers of Grease Monkey Business totally flipped out on the Poptent forums and on his blog when he learned that “The Sword” had been selected over his submission.  It was one of the worst examples of Sore-Loser-ism I’ve ever seen.  The dude ripped into the other filmmakers and the Poptent staff and the decision-makers at Trident and basically accused everyone of cheating.  The only person he didn’t think to blame was himself.  It was this public act of unsportsmanlike conduct that inspired me to write this post, so maybe that guy will see this critique and take it as a reality check.

Anyways, it seems that many companies are starting to realize that viewers like UGC that has a homemade flavor to it.  Just look at this Pepsi Max ad that wound up being one of the winners of the Crash the Super Bowl contest:



That ad is entitled “First Date” and it’s pretty rough around the edges.  But people loved it!  It scored the #7 spot on the USA Today Ad Meter and lots of people were talking about it the day after the game.  On the flip side, the slickest and most expensive User-Generated Pepsi Max ad, “” ranked #24 on the ad meter.  In fact it was the lowest-scoring Crash the Super Bowl ad of the entire game.  So why did the homemade-looking ad score so well while the professional looking ad scored so poorly?  Could it be that 21st century audiences have a soft spot for UGC and gave the Crash the Super Bowl ads a little extra love?  If that was the case, “Torpedo Cooler” may have been so slick that the people in the Ad Meter focus groups assumed it was produced by some big ad agency so they scored it like they would any other “professional” commercial.

The take-away lesson here is that video contests are seldom won by the guys with the nicest gear.  The reason big companies are looking to the “little guys” for video content is because only non-professionals are able to capture the homemade, viral video magic that they so desperately desire.  They want stuff that’s weird and quirky and DIFFERENT.  If a company like Pepsi or Trident wanted a standard commercial shot with a $20,000 camera they would just hire some production company to do that for them.  But Internet users aren’t going to see a plain, old commercial and tweet it or post in on their facebook walls.  In fact, many of us would probably refrain from sharing a funny, professional looking ad just because it would make us feel like un-paid corporate shills.  But videos that have a genuine viral feel to them are free from this corporate stigma.  Obviously a video like “The Sword” is an ad for Trident gum but it feels kind of subversive and unofficial…so its ok to share it!  So even if you’re like the producers of “First Date” and only have $100 to spend on your project you shouldn’t let that stop you.  A great script and passable production values will win out over a lame script and top-notch production values any day of the week.

EPILOGUE: Trident has already started running “The Sword” as an Internet ad.  And though it was only uploaded a week ago it is already the most viewed video on Trident’s official youtube channel.  Their second most viewed video is the Trident commercial about the babysitter who gets paid in gum…and that ad was uploaded in October 2009.  In fact, Trident was so happy with “The Sword” that they went back and purchased a whole bunch more Poptent-made videos. You can see them here: