A Roundup Of The Tahoe / Apprentice Ad Flap

The writing has been fast-and-furious over the weekend, with opinions flying on whether Chevy royally current ad campaign for the Chevy Tahoe, a tie-in (somehow) with the TV show The Apprentice a site where anyone can create his or her own commercial, splicing together a number of video clips and background music supplied by Chevy. More importantly, these user-generated commercials can have text floating over the images of the creator's choosing. Therein lies the rub. It's no surprise (to anyone with an IQ above room temperature) that this has unleashed the creative juices of a number of folks who have found the perfect platform for their messages. A couple of examples that can be found here. (Go ahead, check them out if you haven't seen them. We'll be here when you get back.) Thoughts on the situation so far: Watch." And a LA Times wikitorial fiasco. If that's the case...the GM didn't consider the possibility that people would create ads that were not in line with GM's vision of what should be done...then shame on GM. Any opportunity for "user-generated" media in any topic where there are strong feelings will generate the same spectrum of responses. If that's the case, GM was simply Not Thinking. Any subject that evokes passionate responses will naturally have this outcome. A thought: Perhaps a worthwhile tactic to take in these types of situations is to proactively set up areas/categories for the primary viewpoints that are likely to emerge. In the LA Times case, setting up two wikitorials (one "pro-war" and one "anti-war") may have radically changed the outcome of their experiment. In Chevy's case, allowing the "directors" of the videos to classify them as "pro-SUV" and "anti-SUV" would have been one way to proactively address the problem. It's what Scoble did here ("