Move The ‘Fame Junkies’ Into Marketing With Employee-Generated Videos

Looking for an inexpensive and effective way to market to younger generations? (And in this economy, who isn’t?) Here’s an idea: employee-generated videos.

Looking for an inexpensive and effective way to market to younger generations? (And in this economy, who isn’t?) Here’s an idea: employee-generated videos.Younger generations have been referred to as ‘fame junkies’ for a reason. They have been raised in the era of MTV, YouTube, and reality television and tend to appreciate video formats over other forms of communication.Furthermore, getting Generations X and Y engaged is a chief concern among today’s Boomer-centric workforces, especially considering their average tenure is a mere 20 months. But when employees care enough to create their own videos, that’s pretty much the definition of employee engagement (and fame). And it works!Best Buy sponsored a 401k video contest, asking employees to submit motivating videos that would help increase overall 401k participation. The result was a 30% increase in participation. Here’s the winning video:Deloitte leveraged employee-generated short films to recruit Generation Y. In 2007, the company launched Deloitte Film Festival. With “What’s Your Deloitte?” as the theme, all of Deloitte’s personnel were encouraged to make short films that express the organization’s culture and values.More than 370 short films were submitted by teams of Deloitte personnel! The submitted films were posted on an intranet site where they were viewed and rated by Deloitte employees. The best films were then integrated into campus recruiting programs. Here’s one of the finalist videos:KPMG LLP has its own YouTube channel, KPMG-GO, featuring numerous videos to showcase the KPMG employee experience. KPMG’s internship program gives interns the opportunity to participate in KTV, KPMG’s employee video challenge. One award-winning video, The Firm, stresses the importance of the ethical culture at KPMG and is shot in a documentary style—spoofing the popular NBC sitcom The Office.HP Uncut is an entire site featuring videos “made by real HP employees” promoting HP products and services. It doesn’t get any more interactive, engaging, viral, or persuasive than that.So what can you do in 2009 to give control to younger generations and empower them to get creative on video?