Product placement goes user generated

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When US telecoms network launched the new Samsung Instinct the challenge was to make sure that consumers wanted the new smart phone.

The media solution was to take the traditional of product placement and the current trend for user-generated content and mix them together to appeal to consumers’ most basic desire: cash.

The campaign enabled consumers to digitally place images of the new phone in their home videos and then upload them to a video-sharing site where consumers could vote for the winner. At stake was a $10,000 prize for the most popular video with $20 on offer for each of the first 1,000 submissions.

A special site offered step by step instructions on how to add the phone and brand music to their home movies. Ten finalists were selected by the agency – many of the thousands of entrants featured porn – with consumer voting running from August 8-August 22.

The contest runs in addition to ads that pitch the new Samsung Instinct against Apple’s iPhone and helped make the launch Sprint’s most successful ever. The telecoms provider initially sold out of the handset and the Instinct is selling more than 10,000 devices a week.

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