Why not let Internet junkies do your marketing for you?
Brickfish, a San Diego company, lets you do that by tapping into the creative energies of Internet users — getting them to work for free, essentially, to generate marketing ideas for you.
The music band Incubus tried it out. Take a look at the 150 marketing ideas generated (or see samples at left) when the band asked for ideas on an album cover. It offered the winning designer a signed lithograph and a CD catalog.
Customers like Incubus pay Brickfish anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 per campaign, depending on the number of ideas that users submit, and the number of times the ideas are viewed, reviewed or voted on. However, the users who generate content, they get paid $0. Unless, of course, they win, and get the prize.
Ah, the wonders of user generated content (UCG, as it has become known in industry jargon)!
Investors, too, apparently think it is a no-brainer idea. Brickfish will announce to tomorrow that it has raised $11.2 million in a first round of funding from DCM, a Silicon Valley venture firm. Other investors include Draper Richards, Draper Associates, Mangrove Capital and OCA Ventures.
Chief executive Shahi Ghanem, former president of Nasdaq, said advertisers seeking to build brands through banner ads, pop-ups and other ways are getting frustrated. Those avenues are increasingly ineffective, he said.
Brickfish launched in January, and claims about 40,000 members. It’s way early to say whether the company will succeed or not. The trick is whether Brickfish can get users to take this one extra step. Once users submit their ideas, will they be proud enough of them to put them on widgets in their blogs, to share with still more users — again, all for free? Well, that is the $11 million question. It would be viral marketing that big advertisers like Pepsi could only dream of.
Tags: co:Brickfish, inv:DCM11 Comments
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Mashhood said:
Pretty neat, it will work for sure.
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cg said:
it definitely has “niche marketing solution” written all over it. time will tell if it can become more mainstream…
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Candy said:
For some reason, it isn’t very appealing to me
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Greg said:
why wouldn’t incubus just ask for ideas through its web site or myspace page instead of paying a penny to a third party?
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CircusX said:
people just want to be used. its pathetic…
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Blog Comment Poster said:
Still don\’t get it how all this stuff about Brickfish lets you tap the masses for marketing can affect it…
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bodog book sport said:
Man, what a well set-up website!
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V said:
I am a former winner of a brickfish campaign and its true the sponsors of the campaign cut me off short, but others saw what i could do and it opened doors for me. Even the users who don’t win campaigns are noticed by other companies.
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CA said:
The backlach has begun. Users of LiveJournal are sick and tired of the BrickFish spam posts.
The problem with this kind of campaigning is that your users will spam the content and create a bad reputation for your company.
BrickFish is going to realize this too late.
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Vo Viet Anh said:
Wow, I am a bit surprised after reading this, because after all Brickfish community has some design talents. To me Brickfish’s members and panel judges are a bag of shit. I used all my best to write an essay to submit for its essay contest with expectation of first place after reading hundreds of “top rated” which are ALL bullshit writing. Eventually my piece was nowhere on the front page and reading the 1st and 2nd places’s essays is like 2 shots of scum to my face. They are stupid to all the way. The panel judges must all be illiterate. I really ran a criticizing campaign through multiple users’ pages but ended up bored and quit. Every day seeing my Fastweb list filled with “Brickfish’s bullshit something…” makes me sick.
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evilcurt said:
Brickfish ….SCAM! a bunch of assholes!…dont waste your time!
