In what can only be categorized as a milestone in “community marketing” or “citizen marketing”, Spread Firefox, the volunteer organization promoting the adoption of Firefox web browser, today placed a two page ad in the New York Times with the names of the people who helped finance the launch of Firefox. 
From the press release:
The Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving choice and promoting innovation on the Internet, today announced that it has placed a two-page ad in the December 16th edition of the New York Times. The ad, coordinated by Spread Firefox, features the names of the thousands of people worldwide who contributed to the Mozilla Foundation’s fundraising campaign to support last month’s highly successful launch of the open source Mozilla Firefox 1.0 web browser.
Consumers are now not only creating their own media via blogs. Now they help create advertising too. The homemade iPod ad is another current example. MoveOn ads yet another from earlier this year.
Wired writes: School teacher George Masters has the marketing world abuzz with a homemade ad for Apple Computer’s iPod that is rapidly “going viral.” To some experts, Masters’ ad heralds the future of advertising. Homemade ads will play a big part in marketing, just like blogging is shaking up the news.
In Sweden we sadly do the opposite and fake it. Food chain Coop is currently running a campaign with TV commercials that are produced by Coop’s own members. Or so it looks. In reality they are not. The members in the ads are actors, although not professional ones, but they have been casted and are not the ones who came up with the idea for the commercials.
Link via Micro Persuasion.