The social news site Digg has recently launched an innovative advertising system where users vote on adverts to make them more popular.
If you haven’t heard of Digg, it’s basically a news portal where the community votes on stories and content from around the Internet. The more popular the story the higher it appears on Digg until eventually it appears on the front page. Imagine the BBC website with all the stories on the front page there because viewers voted on them. Alternatively if Digg users dislike a story they can ‘bury’ it, making it go further down the pages.
The same principle applies to ads now appearing on Digg. If the community likes the ad more people will see it, if not, it gets buried and no one sees it. Essentially your recommending it to your fellow users by voting it positive.
This is really interesting because you’re immediately challenging the advertiser to create an engaging ad campaign for the audience. If the brand goes in half hearted then not only will they lose money but the attitude of 2 million plus Digg members could take a negative turn against the product/company.
I think this probably works best for viral types of advertising, I can’t imagine people voting up the launch of a new breakfast cereal or shampoo. Viral ads like the Nike ‘Ronaldinho R10‘ or John West ‘Bear Fight‘ video could be the way to conquer it. I would certainly hire one of the most active Digg users to consult on my ad.
Another problem is relevancy. Ads that appear are based on other peoples votes which could lead to hugely inaccurate results for the end user.
However assuming some funky algorithm is involved and I only get shown ads from people who are my friends and those who have voted on the same types as story as me (Sports, Technology, Gaming etc) it could be positive or negative. Just because you and me vote up the same type of news stories/online content doesn’t mean we like consuming the same things. Even if I myself voted on video about a basketball player scoring from the halfway line on the buzzer. It doesn’t mean I want to be sold the latest basketball gear. I don’t even like basketball, I could have just appreciated the shot.
I think socially recommended ads can be great, I’ve found through research in consumer testing that things to buy that are recommended by friends are much more trusted than those recommended by sites like Amazon. Check out the example below, which products would you be more likely to click on? (privacy considerations aside)
