Collaborative GMail Promo Gets Around

Here’s the neat part about owning YouTube: you can get people to make your commercials for you a lot cheaper than it costs to pay an advertising agency to do it. The end result for Google is still a pretty cool commercial though, the collaborate effort of about 1,100 GMail fans.

Google presented them the basic concept: An envelope with the GMail "M" on the outside needs to travel around the around the world via a series of interesting events. Though 1,100 gave it a whirl, Google picked a handful and spliced together a two-minute magical worldwide adventure for an email based on user submissions.

The envelope travels from skydiver to sushi conveyor belt, is carried by a Lego man, and an animated sketch like the guy from the A-ha video. It was show from a bow, whirled around in somebody’s head, hackey-sacked, flip-booked, and carried by turtle, crab, and mouse.

Submissions came from over 65 countries, and the Google blog has put together a nifty Google Maps overly to show where each clip came from. If you want o see all 1,100, well, you’ve got more time than I do, but you can do that at the Google Channel on YouTube.