SUBSCRIBERS RULE!

Cheap Advertising that beats Super Bowl Commercials

YouTube’s Ad Blitz allowed Tubers to vote on their favorite Super Bowl ads. This “Free Doritos” commercial took top place in the voting, it also happens to be the most watched 2009 Super Bowl commercial on hulu.com. The most interesting thing is that the commercial was not produced by an agency, it was the winner of Doritos’ consumer-generated ad contest. According to AdAge, the commercial only cost $2,000 to make, but Doritos will be shelling out $1 million to brothers Joe and Dave Herbert (who BTW happen to be from ExactTarget’s home state of Indiana).

At $3 millon for a 30 second spot to reach 98 million consumers, I calculate this to be about $40 CPM for ad impressions. Truthfully, they have continued to get milage out of the ad on the internet, so we can bring that down a bit… call it $30 CPM.

Looking at the cost of impressions on YouTube, this “ad” for Charlotte radio station 96.1 The BEAT takes the cake for cheap advertising. The cost, a leotard, a webcam, and a little dignity (okay, a lot of dignity–but this is a radio station intern, what did he expect?). I’ll go with the conservative estimate and throw the $150 webcam into the equation. Add $50 for the outfit and you come to less than $0.09 per 1,000 views.

Let this serve as encouragement as we think about how to grab the attention of our audiences on a mass scale. Clearly, the people at The BEAT know their audience. In this emerging landscape, anyone can give big brand marketers a run for their money!

SR! Photo Contest Winner

As I tallied the votes for our SR! Photo Contest, it struck me that perhaps I had too many “cat people” on the roster of judges.  Don’t get me wrong, I love both cats and dogs, but our winning entry from Joanna Freeman at CareerBuilder.com is a bit too sedate for my alt-rock loving sensibilities.

That said, majority rules and per the SR! philosophy — to each their own.  With that, I give you the winning entry, a.k.a. “Subscripurrrrrrrs Rule”:

The Winning Photo: Subscripurrrrrs Rule!

Joanna assures me that no foam hands or blankets were injured during or after the taking of this photograph.  I also trust that the feline pictured will be compensated with an appropriate modeling fee paid in Cat Chow and catnip (if it’s still legal in Illinois).

Thanks again to all who entered our SR! Contests, and look for more to come in 2009!

SR! T-Shirt Slogan Contest Winner

After receiving over 1,000 entries, the votes have finally been tallied in our SUBSCRIBERS RULE! T-Shirt Slogan Contest.  Congratulations to Dan Heimbrock and his team at Hyperdrive Interactive for their winning entry:

The winning entry: I'm unique. (just like everyone else)

If you’d like to wear Dan’s slogan on your chest, surf on over to our SR! Cafe Press store and pick one up later today (we’re currently wrestling Cafe Press demons to fix our store…so patience will be rewarded).  And yes, I am contractually obligated to make such a blatant plug.

For their efforts, Dan will be receiving a Sanyo Xacti HD video camera with which he is certain to capture an untold number of SR! worthy moments.

Thanks to all who entered — it was a neck & neck race, but I think what pushed Dan’s entry over the edge was the fact that it reminded judge Morgan Stewart of the following SR! inspired moment from Monty Python’s Life of Brian:

Tune back in tomorrow as we announce the SR! Photo Contest winner.  Until then…stay unique!

Pumpkins Rule!

Q: What do you get when you have a father/marketer, two pre-tweens anxious to scoop “pumpkin guts,” and an extraordinarily patient wife who is adept at the crafting arts?

A: The world’s first, SUBSCRIBERS RULE!™ carved pumpkin!

Enjoy the pics, and don’t forget — you have until Midnight EST on Halloween to submit your SR!-themed photos and t-shirt slogans for your chance to win one of two Sanyo Xacti HD video cameras.  Enter now!

The official SUBSCRIBERS RULE!™ Pumpkin

NEWSFLASH: Gourds are very subscriber-centric.

Win a Sanyo Xacti Before the Babies Do

There’s only 11 days to go in our SUBSCRIBERS RULE! Xacti-Mundo Contest.

Be sure to enter your t-shirt slogan & photo entries in ASAP.  If the picture below is any indication, babies are poised to run away with this thing and must be stopped. After all, babies love SUBSCRIBERS RULE! foam hands.  Foam hands and fuzzy things.  And moving things.  And tasty things.  And shiny things.

You know what?  The more I think about it, the more I wonder if babies are really the discerning consumers that they’re made out to be.   Rest assured, I’ll make sure the judges take that into consideration when picking our winners.

No babies or foam hands were hurt during the making of this picture

A Picture Worth a Sanyo Xacti?

A gentle reminder that you still have 3 weeks to enter our SUBSCRIBERS RULE! Xacti-Mundo Contest and stake your claim to one of two Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1010 high-def video cameras that we’re giving away.

For full contest rules, be sure to check out this post.  One Xacti will be given to the person who comes up with the best SR! t-shirt slogan while the other will go to the photographer who best captures the spirit of the SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy (with or without one of our sought-after foam hands).

Will the fine folks pictured below at the Cheers Bar in Boston (formerly the Bull & Finch Pub to you purists) win?  No, because they are ExactTarget employees and, therefore, ineligible.  Buy you — YOU, however, could be a winner.  So what’s stopping you?

Have they captured enough of the SR! spirit to win a Sanyo Xacti?

SR! Xacti-Mundo Contests!!!

I think there’s a rule about blogging while rushed, but I’m ignoring it to get this info in your hands.  I’m pleased to announce our first-ever SUBSCRIBERS RULE! contest.  Make that TWO contests.  Here’s the lowdown:

• 

  Win one of two, sweet Sanyo Xactis!

  CONTEST #1: Just Sayin’ T-Shirt Contest — We’ve got SUBSCRIBERS RULE! t-shirts, but we need great, subscriber-centric slogans to go on the front.  Submit your best SR! t-shirt slogan to subscribersrule-at-exacttarget.com, and the entry judged the best will win a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1010 High Definition Video Camera. (4MP MPEG4 High Definition 1080i/1080p Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom).

Being the proud owner of an Xacti HD1010, I can tell you that it is awesomely compact & extremely user friendly. It shoots both full HD video and high-quality stills–all to removable SD or SDHC cards (not included).

• CONTEST #2: Photographic Evidence Contest: Shutterbugs, rev up your pixels and submit your photos that best capture the essence of the SUBSCRIBERS RULE! philosophy.  Submit your photos or links to your photos (on Flickr, Facebook, etc.) to subscribersrule-at-exacttarget.com.  Again, the winner will receive a Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1010 High Definition Video Camera.

Each contest is open until Midnight EST on Friday, October 31st, 2008.  If you enter, please sure to include your full name, address, phone number, and email address along with your entry.  ExactTarget employees and vendors as well as their families are sadly not eligible to participate.  Void where prohibited.

All images and content submitted will become the property of ExactTarget and may be used in future SUBSCRIBERS RULE!-related stuff.  What stuff?  Don’t know.  But seriously, if you’re going to quibble about that, just don’t enter.  We’d prefer to just remain friends rather than let a little thing like copyright ownership come between us.  Plus–there’s two cool Xactis to be won!

So, fire up the creative juices and get goin’.  Subscribers need to know that we know that they are in charge of this crazy thing called one-to-one & email marketing.  This is just one small step forward in that effort.