ebay, The Place to Find Advertisers?
It appears Rocketboom has found that the seven-day ebay sell cycle is more to their liking than the traditional Media Buyer route. With the final bid at $40,000, Rocketboom claims the winning bidder will reach one million viewers.
Rocketboom indicated they would have complete control over the commercials they create, "This auction is a bid for advertisement space on Rocketboom, in addition to payment for our creative services" but they will "work closely with the winner to make sure that their message will resonate with our viewers in a beneficial way for the winner".
A couple of thoughts about their complete control statement from a production perspective:
- As a Director/DP, I have just given up 100% creative control of my client's message to someone else that may or may not understand and be able to translate into a final spot.
- In addition, as a DP, Rocketboom's creative and technical services do not meet high enough standards from my perspective. I calculate their production expertise may be worth about $2,000 or what you might find in a 125-sized market, which means the rest of the winning bid, or $38,000, is for ad placement.
This approach takes a page from a politician's playbook; go around the mainstream media and get your message out to the public. While Rocketboom has earned some money and used a novel approach, I wonder if this is a long-term strategy or a one-time play. Too be more specific, will advertisers want to bid the second, third or tenth time around, and will it work? In addition, will Rocketboom's metrics be meaningful for the winning bidder?
The bidding has closed for now, stay tuned.
