Your market is laughing; at you

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has hit some success with a program that gets viewers to create mash-up advertisements that spoof traditional advertising.

The number of ads made for a range of fictional products – a beer, an anti-ageing cream and a bank – and the number of times they have been watched, 280,000, has surprised ABC programming chiefs.

However, this is not going over well with the industry:

But yesterday the chairman of one of the biggest industry groups, Robert Morgan of Clemenger Communications, panned the series, saying it “demeaned and trivialised” the business.

Here is an important note to corporations; Cluetrain Thesis #20:

Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

Gee, what’s next, people making fun of education?