Don't alert the Academy about 'Firefox Flicks'

Consumer-generated media has gotten a lot of attention this year. Some insightful observers have even noticed that advertisers are inviting customers to define their brand message and creative. So AdFreak was interested to see Firefox go whole hog for CGM, challenging its passionate fan base to “spread the fox” by creating their own testimonials of the browser.  We’re totally down with the Mozilla Foundation in spirit, but the early results are, well, uneven. Firefox is a great product, much superior to Internet Explorer, but it is frustratingly hard to explain to people used to IE the wonders of tabbed browsing. One testimonial features a woman explaining how she downloaded Firefox for a friend and it “changed his life.” Good to see it’s just not the professional ad folks who are partial to overstatement. Another has what we think is a Scandinavian man blandly saying Firefox puts him in control of his Internet experience while sitting next to a table with a glass of wine. Perplexing. Go watch the others for yourself here. The contest runs through February 21, and maybe the Mozilla Foundation is keeping the good stuff locked away. Perhaps the more effective marketing approach will come via Google, which is simply paying sites $1 for every download of Firefox (with Google toolbar, naturally) from their sites. Leave it up to the sites to explain to their visitors the benefits of Firefox.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

December 9, 2005 in Morrissey | Permalink