Amazon to tap customer videos for new TV ad campaign

Every once in a while, a product for sale on Amazon.com goes viral -- racking up dozens, even hundreds of humorous and quirky customer reviews, as was the case recently with the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt. Now, Amazon is trying to tap that customer creativity for a new TV ad campaign. The online retailer is asking people to submit a 30-second video that could be used in a future Amazon TV advertisement.

Here's the idea from Amazon:

You could show us anything, from how fast you can place an order to how excited your dog gets when he sees the delivery guy. Just show us something that would catch your eye (and, better yet, rewind your DVR!) and make you want to shop with Amazon.

The winner could get up to $20,000 in Amazon gift card credit and a film festival screening, according to the rules posted here. The deadline is July 17.

Amazon does very little TV advertising, and using crowdsourcing to develop a TV ad is an interesting strategy (Amazon has been developing the crowdsourcing concept with its Mechanical Turk service).

But anyone trying to get rich with this should read the fine print:

If one of the winning concepts is incorporated into an actual advertisement, there will be no additional compensation besides the prize of an Amazon.com Gift Card (or two Amazon.com Gift Cards, if the same person wins both prizes) in the amount of $10,000, and a screening of the clips at a U.S. film festival.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spent some time talking about the power of customer humor at a recent shareholder meeting, noting that the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt had for a time become the bestseller in Amazon's apparel store.

About Eric Engleman

ERIC ENGLEMAN is senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, covering online retail giant Amazon.com. Engleman tracks Amazon's increasingly complex business, spanning ecommerce, Kindle, cloud computing, and more. He's been covering technology and other industries for the Business Journal since 2003.

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