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Rating - 6 out of 10

Barclaycard is following up its waterslide TV ad by running asking YouTube members to create and film a working model of a waterslide and post it on the .  YouTube members then vote on the best clips and the winner walks away with an around the world trip visiting five waterparks (or a rather lame £7,000 cash).

Firstly there are three things I like about this campaign. One is the way the client (or agency?) has taken the TV idea across other media.  I also love the (only) video that has already been posted – which I think is on a par with BBH’s original (and with a better soundtrack!).  And thirdly I think the prize fits neatly with the promotion.

But what I struggle with is whether this really meets the client’s original brief.  Barclaycard does not make water slides – they sell payment cards, and in particular contactless credit cards – how many people posting ads, really recognise that? 

Secondly, the type of person who is likely to make an advert on YouTube would tend to be a geeky teenage type.  Is this really Barclaycard’s target customer?  Thirdly, Barclaycard is a mass-market brand.  Despite YouTube’s claims, making an ad that meets the criteria for this promotion remains a fairly specialised and exclusive club, thus engaging with a mere handful of potential consumers – as evidenced by just one homemade ad on the site, two weeks into the competition.

This time last year, Thomas Cook expanded its Vote for an Extra Bank Holiday campaign from TV, retail POS, press, poster and PR and into guerrilla marketing, online and Facebook. This not only allowed us to reach new (but relevant) segments (kids tell their parents), but with a commercial message to give us their name for our petition (35,000 from Facebook alone), that we could datamine with follow-up marketing messages.  I think that Barclaycard needed to heed these lessons, and go back to the core objective – not just get carried away with a fun creative idea.
 
That said, I really wish every entrant well… and my one piece of advice, is not to forget what BBH unfortunately did when they filmed the original TV ad – namely where does the bloke keep his Barclaycard when he is whooshing down the slide?!!