With 290MM members, eBay can easily broadcast a mass marketing message to its users.But eBay isn’t a big network; it’s a community of small communities.So when eBay wanted to reignite their core, they didn’t distribute one video to reach a massive market, they distributed many videos and reached many markets.

And they didn’t create the videos.Through a production company, eBay asked the creative community to create video commercials for their own auctions.Participants got $500, a few rules, then simply submitted videos.

eBay then distributed the best to appropriate third-party sites.The result: members benefited directly from the campaign, as did the eBay brand.

STAGE 1: COMMUNITY OUTREACHThrough a production company, eBay asked 200 select members of the creative community (but no professional directors) to create video commercials for their own ebay auction.STAGE 2: SUBMISSIONSeBay received finished videos – they did not review treatments, just finished videos. Then 75 were chosen for distribution.STAGE 3: LET THEM POSTVideos were posted concurrent to auctions going live, and placed on video sites, niche sites related to the auction (for example, the stop-animation video about vintage Lego men was placed on Lego fan sites and stop-animation sites) and on the members’ myeBay page.