Check out this piece of Consumer Generated Content from Nick Haley – an eighteen-year-old university student from Leeds in the UK. iPod Touch Ad – Nick Haley:

Apple checked it out too. They liked it so much that they brought Haley over from his home in the UK to work with their advertising agency in Los Angeles and re-shoot the content as a thirty-second spot. The iPod Touch ad will appear in the coming weeks all over network television.

The spot has been getting some serious attention, including this article in The New York Times, Student’s Ad Gets A Remake, And Makes The Big Time.

"Consumers creating commercials ‘is part of this brave new world we live in,’ said Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA Worldwide, based in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Playa del Rey. ‘It’s an exciting new format for brands to communicate with their audiences,’ Mr. Clow said. ‘People’s relationship with a brand is becoming a dialog, not a monolog.’"

I like that "becoming a dialog, not a monolog" line. Sounds very Social Media.

My big like for this is that Haley made this piece of content for one reason only: he loved his iPod Touch. He didn’t do this to win a contest. He didn’t do this for the YouTube traffic (well, maybe he did it a little bit for that reason).

This also fondly reminds me of George Master’s iPod Mini spot. It also got tons of traffic (though, when this piece was released there was no YouTube and Apple did not change it into an official Apple spot).