Open Source Comedy as Smart Marketing

We have heard of Open Source business models, OS inspired film and music production, even car making, but what is an Open Source Comedy about? But here we go: Friend of OpenBusiness David Bausola has designed an OS comedy for Ford, the carmaker.

The concept involves comedians driving around Europe and users (viewers) can decide where they go and what they do. In Where Are the Joneses comdedians drive around, trying to find their fictional siblings.
Users have a full arsenal of ‘open tools’ to engage with the site and campaign: a wiki to influence the script and also a twitter integration.

One imporant point to realize is that this project had been produced by Imagination, a big old media company, which is an expert in industrial age PR and marketing techniques such as organizing car shows, but not in online marketing.

But they have thrown OS philosophy, Creative Commons, Wiki’s, user generated content into a big bowl, mixed it and came up with the concept of an OS comedy.
It will be interesting to see if a) the campaign will go viral, b) how many people will participate, and c) how Ford will judge success or failure. The last point is perhaps the most crucial one from a professional perspective.

Its gonna be hard to differentiate in between ‘active participation’ in the campaign, which is good thing from the clients perspective, and ‘exposure to the brand’. On the site itself you can only see little banner saying ‘sponsored by Ford’, but how many will remember this and associate the brand with the camapign?

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