Earlier in the year, we lamented the lack of creativity by banks in leveraging Super Bowl mania at their websites (see NetBanker Feb. 3). Not so with the other "football."

National Australia Bank promotes its World Cup entrant, the Socceroos, with a clever, make-your-own ad microsite (see screenshots below). A small graphic on its homepage (click on inset for closeup) leads users to the interactive ad-building site. Users create custom video shorts by dragging-and-dropping video clips into a storyboard. User then adds own text and chooses from several soundtracks to complete the creation. Ads are posted online and can be viewed either by looking at "the latest," "the most popular," or celebrity ads. There are 320 posted as of today.

Analysis
This is smart in so many ways:

1. The novelty of the website creates positive publicity in the media, on and off-line.
2. The bank creates a positive association with its brand by leveraging the national pride generated by a World Cup entrant.
3. The "cool factor" of interactive content positions the bank as "with it."
4. As users upload their ads to video-sharing services such as YouTube, the bank will get a viral marketing boost. The bank wisely plasters its name at the beginning and end of the content, positioning itself on an equal footing with the end-user author (see inset). 

This is another clever example of user-generated content, something we'll see more of as mainstream businesses ride the wave of blogging's popularity: MySpace, YouTube, and 10,000 Web startups. (Click on the link below for additional screenshots). --JB

First page of the ad making microsite:

Listing of favorite ads:

Listing of celeb ads: