XLNTads: Tapping creative consumers for advertising content

The consumer is king, and now consumers could be your ad agency too. Taking consumer-generated content and using it to promote brands is becoming more and more popular online.

by Helen Leggatt

Another online advertising agency is being launched, but here clients brief consumers. XLNTads, which goes live later this year, will enable brand marketers and ad agencies to tap in to the growing consumer-generated content market and allow the creativeness of internet users promote their brands.

Adage.com cites Sarah Fay, president of Isobar U.S., who calls it "the democratization of creative content", but who feels that consumer-generated content won’t necessarily be a regular format marketers use.

Along with the attraction of allowing consumers to “own” brands and be engaged with the promotion process, Neil Perry, CEO of XLNTads feels that the cost benefits will spread the appeal to smaller size companies. "The average cost of a Super Bowl spot was $350,000,” he said. “Some auto manufacturers spend $600,000 to $650,000 to do a single campaign. We say take that same amount of money, pay $20,000 [for creative], and that leaves you more to reinvest in media, in delivering the message."

Much like the recently launched Zoopa.com, marketers submit creative briefs and browse through the resultant material created by consumers. Each submission is screened by a review board to ensure they adhere to brand guidelines, standards and values.

"XLNTads takes the guesswork out of consumer-generated advertising, providing a convenient and easy-to-use platform for marketers to tap into the potential this channel holds,” said site founder and internet expert Rick Parkhill. “Marketers get an easy way to deploy consumer-generated advertising programs and gain access to a large pool of consumers drawn to the site by the other advertisers -- all in a controlled environment where each submission is reviewed by a human to ensure compliance with copyright, trademark and decency law."

XLNTads.com has chosen Brightcove Internet TV to collect the consumer media, program user-generated content and distribute video through branded broadband channels for each marketing campaign.