Trend: User-Created: Citi on YouTube

NY Times declares that we "Agencies Are Watching as Ads Go Online". By that they note the runaway popularity of certain campaigns that get posted online and have gotten re-mixed (positively) by viewers and fans who take painstaking efforts to contribute their own versions of commercial campaigns (uh, for free). They cite Vonage and Mentos/Diet Coke as the phenomenons du jour (but don't forget our own saga of Sony Bravia consumer passion).

As NYT asserts, I too, have been spying YouTube and Google Video for user-created submissions to our Citi Identity Theft Solutions campaigns. While some are clever, and admittedly some not, you still gotta give it up that folks are scripting, shooting (retaking), editing (many with our real end tags chopped on) and sending friends spoofs of a credit card message. Some of the better picks below...























I am trying to crudely tally the total average viewings of the User-Mades (i count 15,000+ so far, still counting and trying to gather all of them, perhaps 25 so far - this is hardly a science, folks) as well as the User-Posteds of our own original spots (considerably higher viewings, but that, too will take a sec to sort thru)...standby on the stats soon(ish).