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As General Motors (GM, news, msgs) tries to reinvent itself, the automaker is turning to college students for help with its Super Bowl ad campaign.
The company's Chevrolet division has kicked off a contest that lets full-time students compete for the chance to see their concept for a Chevy commercial turned into a spot that will air during the broadcast of Super Bowl XLI, set for Feb. 4 in Miami.
A panel of judges will pick the five best ideas, and the students will be flown to Detroit to further explain their vision. The winning concept will be converted into a 30-second spot by Chevrolet's ad firm, Campell-Ewald, with the students who submitted the winning idea involved in the production process.
In undertaking the campaign, General Motors is jumping on the user-generated bandwagon that has brought success to Web sites like YouTube.com.
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"We were really looking at how (to) engage thousands of young people around the Chevy brand," says Mike Jackson, General Motors' vice president of marketing and advertising. "We felt, what better way to do it (than to) have them do their own research around the Chevy product and then have them creatively express themselves?"
While a 30-second Super Bowl spot costs $2.5 million or more, there's little risk in the move for General Motors, says Steve Miller of Brandweek magazine. "These kids are going to a Web site and getting the rules, downloading and everything. They're just turning in creative (ideas). Chevy can accept or discard anything it wants."
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"They're looking for a buzz by getting these younger people to put together these ads, and they're trying to get some credibility with a younger buyer," Miller says.
The Buick division of General Motors has had success in appealing to younger buyers. Buick credits its sponsorship deal with Tiger Woods with driving down the age of the Buick driver by 12 years.
General Motors is not the only company looking to capitalize on the buzz created by user-generated content, The New York Times reports. The Frito-Lay unit of PepsiCo (PEP, news, msgs) is also sponsoring a contest to come up with a commercial that will run during the Super Bowl, and the National Football League is expected soon to announce rules for its own contest.
Some of the spots will also appear online, the Times says, giving them a chance to spread virally around the Internet.
"Obviously, when you're in the situation GM is in, you're going to make (marketing) changes no matter what," says Brandweek's Miller. "(The company) knows it needs to change, to shake things up. The more it does, the better it'll be, at this point."