Would you get excited about participating in a contest involving creating your own short online video advertisement for Product X (assuming the prize and organizations behind it were reputable)? Why or why not?

No, but 16–23 year old guys would.

Only if Product X means a hell of a lot to me, and there is a large and substantial reward. I don’t work for free.

I would not get excited about participating, no. There are too many companies trying to milk this nowadays, it’s not new, it’s been done before by many different people to different results, and there’s a very fine line between crowdsourcing for fun and crowdsourcing for profit which many companies don’t seem to respect.

@dynamicduo thanks! do you think the topic itself is unexciting/hackneyed or the fact that a company would be involved is the turn-off instead? i agree that some companies cynically crowdsource for profit. how can it be done right, or when have you seen it done right?

I think that the topic is unexciting, and that companies trying to exploit customers to avoid paying an ad company is a major turnoff.

You want an ad for Product X? Hire a @#$% marketing company.

I wouldnt mind participating in it. Im not going to go out and search for a contest for that, but if I got offered, I probably wouldnt decline.

@cwilbur Sorry I should have clarified in the original question—in that ad video idea, I didn’t mean Product X was for a specific company, I meant Product X as a generic product/idea—like an advertisement about “the beach” or “firefighters” or “turtles as pets”. The emphasis being on the creativity and format of the advertisement.