New MasterCard campaign shoots blanks, goes open source

Ran into the new MasterCard "priceless" spots during the Academy Awards tonight and my jaw dropped. The ad invites users to write their own priceless script and MasterCard will make the ad. Cool!

This is a great step forward for open source marketing (I'm going to call this OSM). Part of OSM is CGM, or consumer generated media and this is a good example. Strictly speaking though, even this is not pure CGM since it's still prompted by the company itself (but it's a good start).

Here's AdFreak talking about the ad.

A note on CGM: It's the current buzz word floating around the industry and I love it. Some marketers (such as MasterCard) are understanding it and starting to stick their toes into it. Unfortunately, I think it's too narrow a focus. It is only about the forward facing part of marketing, the messages and the ads.

But consumers experience so much more of your product. Why don't we start talking about allowing the consumer in on more, like product management decisions or even pricing strategy. CGM is great but it won't carry OSM. Consumer empowerment on many levels is what will make this happen.