When Crispin Porter + Bogusky Miami first started working with mobile app Letgo—a classifieds app that lets people sell their unwanted disco balls and other treasures—it created a fun digital component called the Commercializer.
With the Commercializer, people could choose from a handful of over-the-top ad parodies and seamlessly insert the product they're trying to sell into it. There's the '80s action video, the classic pharma ad and the elegant perfume commercial, among others.
"Finally, a way to create that Hollywood-style commercial your secondhand listing deserves without the inconvenience of actually going to Hollywood," the site says.
Since rolling out the feature in April, CP+B reported that fans of the site are making over 10,000 custom videos each day and about 1.16 million total videos to date. That's a pretty big feat for a mobile app that wants people to take that old (possibly very embarrassing) junk in their garages and make public listings for it. The fact that people are willing to share their listings on social media has been a happy surprise for the CP+B Miami team.
"That's great, purely as a numbers thing, but if you go onto Facebook and you search the hashtag #LetgoCommercializer, the very tiny number of people who have their Facebook profile comments set to public—if you just read through those, the kind of feedback we're seeing is almost unheard of," said Jay Gelardi, CP+B Miami executive creative director.
"Oh man. LetGo turned my ad for my coffee table into a commercial. This is amazing lol. It's pretty rad," one Facebook user posted when sharing her commercial.
"The category has been dormant for so long and there's been so little innovation in it, so I think digitally there's a bunch of stuff we can do to keep building on how great the platform is at the moment and then in TV," Gelardi said.
In the meantime, as the campaign continues to show signs of success, CP+B has rolled out a new set of ads for the app. One features a girl trying to sell a disco ball she's carrying on her motorcycle. In the end, the disco ball ends up with a perfect new set of owners, the Village People. Two other new spots broke this week as well, both of which echo the idea of finding new owners for your used stuff.