Social Media Shift

Social media has allowed the entertainment industry to shift more of the load of advertising and marketing to the consumers. When thinking of examples of companies that are shifting their advertising and marketing to the consumers, Doritos and GoPro are two to consider.

Doritos holds an annual competition that has become huge. It lets the fans send in videos for a Doritos ad and the winning video that is selected through fan voting will air during the prime time television spot. This allows fans to directly participate with the brand by encouraging them to submit a video that could be feature during the Super Bowl. In addition, it generates a social media buzz about the competition and increases web traffic by posting videos to the website and encouraging people to watch and vote.

The Breakdown

• Fans make a video and submit it to Doritos' website in late fall.
• The videos are selected and semi finalists are voted on.
• Finalists are chosen and fans continue to vote.
• The winning video is show as Doritos' Super Bowl ad. 

It is important to give fans direct participation with your brand by allowing them to make something and send it in with the hopes of it being used for your brand's advertising. This will show fans that you care about them and will provide them an opportunity for their creativity to shine. Holding a contest and allowing people to vote on the submissions encourages participation by everybody, not just those who submitted. Once a winner is selected, the winning submission is posted on social media. This example from Doritos shows the shift that industries are taking by allowing their consumers to assist in marketing and advertisement for their company. The consumers will have an actual opportunity to truly market or advertise for them.

Another popular example is the versatile camera GoPro. The company GoPro has viewers upload their GoPro photos, and other users get to vote on them. Every day GoPro posts the Photo of the Day on Instagram and other platforms that they use.

Basically, they have users submit photos of themselves on Instagram using the product. This certainly allows GoPro to leverage themselves because the consumers are marketing and advertising their product for them. The reach the GoPro obtains is incredible as they have over 1 million followers. GoPro does add some incentive to the daily post as they reward the Photo of the Day winner with a package of all of their products. This reward has captured hundreds of thousands of people and again is another great example of how social media has shifted by allowing consumers to market and advertise for different companies.