MIKESTOPFORTH

Mike Solomon (subscribe to this man’s RSS feed!) points to a nifty campaign called “Code of the Road” by Chevrolet SA. They’re asking Chevy evangelists to “be a part of South Africa’s first real TV ad” by submitting video clips according to a specific brief. Here’s a snippet from that brief as it appears on the site:

The commercial is based on the overseas “Code of the Road” Chevrolet commercials. Your challenge is to become part of making a uniquely South African version of the ad, showing true South Africans across the board, standing in front of Chevrolets with magnificent backdrops (from Table Mountain to the Kruger Park) and each delivering lines from the script.

We want real South African characters – from the beautiful to the downright weird. Give us the boere with the boeps, the young girls hanging around in packs, the old guys without their two front teeth, the traditional Zulu warriors, the stiff-upper-lip English, the models, the students, the Drakensberg Boys Choir, the bikers, the farmers, the kids, the Indian auntie, the young married couple, the game rangers, the rugby players, the cricket fans, the ballet dancers, the fishermen, the business tycoons, the mine workers, etc. But above all, give us the performance of your life!

You must record yourself, your friend, dad, uncle, ouma, or whoever, saying at least three of the lines of the script. You are of course allowed to do the whole script – chances are higher that you’ll feature when you do. The footage you submit should be no longer than 3 minutes.

We want Chevrolets as part of the shots. Of course this isn’t a requisite, but it will count in your favour if your shot includes a Chevrolet – past or present. No matter what state the Chevrolet is in – any Chevrolet is better than no Chevrolet.

Hmmm… very cool. As a catalyst for participation they commissioned an ad agency to put together a professional version with “rough edges” to give prospective citizen marketers some idea of what is expected. There are already some citizen-generated submissions (doesn’t seem to be many) and I guess it’s not inconceivable that the agency is responsible for those too, but who wants to be a skeptic. They’ve got some really nice touches – consumers can submit suggestions for changes to the script which gives the impression that Chevy’s attitude is “we know what we want to say, so we’ve put it down, but you might have a better way to say it and we trust that”. Smart.

In terms of the clips – I see a “Best Clip” and “Worst Clip” under the Latest Adverts heading. As it stands the best and worst video’s are the same video (check it here), and next to the video is a list of info – ratings, the creator’s username, a comments link. Problem is, the links don’t go anywhere. Curious to find out why, I clicked on “view clip and detail“.

Here’s where it gets strange. It takes me back to the professional version, which has a YouTube like interface complete with ratings, tags, comments, etc. All of which are dead links!! WTF!?

I don’t quite get what the point is, unless the site’s not finished, and in that case, why put up a half-hearted effort.

Nice to see a brand venturing into the Consumer Generated Media space, but crap, do it properly if you’re going to do it at all!