I want to start this post by stating that I’m a great believer in marketing, that it serves a purpose, and that no company be without marketing. But sometimes I think that, exactly because marketing is such an all-encompassing discipline, some of the marketers out there go a little too far.

Take Atlanta-based ViTrue, Inc. for example. It seems they took GM’s ‘Create A Chevy Tahoe Commercial‘ case as a basis for their company. Basically, they claim to be all about protecting brands. And they host some three applications with which their principals can basically let their customers fool around with their brands -but in a respectful manner.

ViTrue is a safe place for Brands. As the world’s first user-created advertising platform, we allow companies to put consumer enthusiasm to work. At ViTrue, we give consumers the tools to create authentic, engaging advertising experiences that never compromise the integrity of your brand. In short, ViTrue enables unprecedented results at a fraction of the usual cost of production.

Why would I, as a consumer, want to do that? Make wowing testimonials for a product I pay good money for? Hello, McFly? ViTrue basically expects consumers to go play around with approved outtakes of existing commercials to make ‘fun’ new content, which they can then post and share with other enthusiastic consumer friends. All the while under their watchful eyes, because, you know, the Brand is holy.

ViTrue offers a ‘branded video community’ platform, I’m guessing to be used white-labeled by any of their customers, on their respective sites. Then there’s my favorite, the ‘AdMixer’, a tool which, well, let’s read from the product page:

ViTrue’s AdMixer allows brands to safely enter the User Genereated Content (UGC) space.  With advanced features to impress the most experienced video producer, the AdMixer is easy enough for novice users to make their own unique ‘Mash-Ups’, using brand-endorsed assets like video, audio, text and images. 

With a standard TV spot, you get 30 seconds with a consumer, ViTrue’s AdMixer product can give you 15 minutes.

I love the ‘mash-ups’ thrown in there, all casual like that, directly followed by the ‘brand-endorsed assets’. Great stuff. So this is video editing software, to be used online, which in itself is pretty cool, I know of only a handful of websites offering online video editing (Jumpcut, VideoEgg and eyespot of which I like Jumpcut the best). But of course I would have to work with pre-approved clips, and I’m wondering if that also implies that no cutting and pasting inside the clips is possible, either (one can do very evil/funny stuff with rearranging a person’s words, for example).

The third application they offer is an online video community site called Sharkle.com, where supposed consumer-made commercials will be shared and glorified (for a fee, I’m sure). Seems faking it is becoming a recurring theme, considering the last posts.

I exgarrate a bit perhaps, but the eerie feel I got from the site and some of the news releases, is that they make marketing look like we view the world as a bunch of simpletons. I mean, it’s like ‘the customer be damned’ but in a different format, thinking that you just throw a known brand at consumers, and they’ll happily start composing their own Odes to Joy, to then evangelize it with their friends. Come on, folks, let’s be serious. Marketing is a fluid process, where there’s a constant pull and push between customer and brand. Now more than ever, brands are under constant scrutiny from an extremely well-informed and demanding public, and choosing your tools to sell your product on and offline should be done with the utmost care, because they will happily kill the messenger too, and the message with him. Sitting them down on the floor with scissors, a pot of glue and magazine clippings to make a nice Minute Maid collage, under the watchful eye of Ms. Coca Cola is scoffing your customers.

So is there any good news? Yes! ViTrue’s Sharkle was used for a political awareness campaign on Friendster during the last midterms, so it doesn’t have to be all paternalistic in its use. Also, the video editing tool could be spun off under a different name to allow us to do whatever we want with a Chevy Tahoe, for example. There’s room in that segment, and if what they have is up to Jumpcut’s level, they should.

Finally, perhaps a tip. How about bending this into a community-based focus group? The trouble with regular focus groups is, they’re bloody expensive and you always have that lingering doubt afterwards if the sample wasn’t skewed in your favor or whatever. I do believe commercials are popular, and if they could use a community to review and discuss new, unreleased commercials/ads (or mock ups, or even further up the chain, scripts) this puts the consumer in a very different seat. You would still have them talk about your brand, and get cred for asking their opinion -which will create very loyal customers down the line.