Burgeoning volumes of digital content, coupled with cheap editing tools and the ever-widening Internet is an explosive combination! A combination which has given rise to a new, potentially dangerous trend for brand marketers - that of the consumer creating & modifying commercials for a brand and circulating them over the Internet!

Nike's Golden Chance
2005 Golf Masters Final Round: Tiger Woods' hit landed the golf ball 20 feet from the 16th hole - after which it turned by nearly 90 degrees to point exactly towards the hole; then moving to the hole, it paused for a fraction of a second, before dropping in!

As was clearly visible in the telecast, the ball in use was a prototype Nike One Platimum golf ball. Not surprisingly, Nike Golf's marketing team started making immediate plans to use this event for marketing the Nike One Platinum golf ball. Setting their deadline as 1 week, they commenced work on the design/production almost immediately.

But marketing blogger & consultant for "new marketing techniques" Joseph Jaffe took the initiative from Nike's marketing team. Jaffe transferred Tiger Wood's winning moment from his TiVo to his PC and simply added "Just Do It" (Nike's famous slogan) at the end of the video. Presto! In less than 30 minutes, Jaffe's commercial for Nike One was ready. All he needed to do was to post it on his blog site - which he did the same night.

Many thousands of hits later, Jaffe has become a well-known figure. Standing out as an outstanding example of consumer initiative & control, even if for the wrong reasons. (Jaffe's effort is obviously driven by a strong desire for promoting his servcies as consultant for redefining the rules and the roles of marketing.)

No prizes for guessing that Nike Golf's Marketing Director was reportedly one of the last to see Jaffe's ad !

iPod & Consumer-generated Media
Nike is the latest in a long line of international brands. While Nike's experience was benevolent, many other brands have already experienced the negative power of consumer generated media (since their brands were not always depicted in a good light by consumers).

And speaking of new-age experiences, can today's icon the iPod be far behind? Here are 2 examples of consumer generated media vis a vis the iPod:

In one instance, an iPod admirer spent 5 months to create a professional-quality ad for iPod that was widely distributed on the Web.

While in a second case, 2 brothers filmed each other spray-painting the words "IPOD'S UNREPLACEABLE BATTERY LASTS ONLY 18 MONTHS" on many iPod ads and then posted the video at www.iPodsdirtysecret.com - all because Apple refused to replace their iPod battery when it died!

Technology Supports Word of Mouth
Word-of-mouth marketing is also known as buzz marketing or viral marketing. The growth of word-of-mouth marketing is an inevitable side effect of the huge advances in technology. A flood of graphic design tools has tied up with the fact that all new content as well as broadcast is digital. This makes it easy to capture, alter & even create content. And the ubiquitous Internet as a cheap mass communication network has added fuel to the fire! With new phenomena like (the hugely popular web-logging sites) adding power to established technologies like email.

With all this technology at hand, consumers' desire to have a say in (re)defining brands that affect their lives is now feasible. In other words, consumers are increasingly using the "voice" that current technology has given them.

The Final Reaction!
Sticking to its "go by the rules" approach, Nike reportedly tried to force the ad's removal - confirming that they have completely missed Jaffe's point of redefining the rules.