Malibu Caribbean Rum is the latest big brand to get its reputation slightly singed when their YouTube video contest backfired. Malibu asked for video entries, offered a $25k prize and even had Efren Ramirez of “Napoleon Dynamite” help with the judging.

Unfortunately, when the winner was declared, some entrants cried fowl, suggesting that contest was rigged.

One YouTube user even made a six-minute conspiracy theory video that compared images from a professional Malibu commercial promoting the contest with the winner?s video, saying in part: ?Wow, the same nose!? The same guy? You be the judge!?

?It just looks like, wow, they rigged the contest,? said Debbie Lusignan, 35, of Adams, Mass. ?I am furious. I spent 60 hours on this freaking contest.?

The winner and Malibu both deny any conspiracy, but as Techdirt points out, perception is often reality and so whether rigged or not, a question mark will forever hang of the legitimacy of the contest.

Still, what is it they say about “all publicity is good publicity?”

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Run by Mozilla, the contest resulted in over 250 30-second advertising videos being created and submitted by Firefox enthusiasts.

Last week, Mozilla began showcasing some of these videos.

Many of them demonstrate some really great creativity and imagination. While the contest winner will get a $5,000 gift certificate for photo and video equipment, I’d guess many of the submissions weren’t done with an eye purely on that prize.

This Firefox campaign is another example of an opportunity there for the taking if you have a bit of imagination and lots of passion – look at what happened 15 months ago with the Firefox ad in the New York Times.

Asking users to produce your ads is about as far removed from traditional advertising practice as you can get. It’s not the first – look at GM’s Chevy Tahoe campaign and many others – and it certainly won’t be the last.

This doesn’t mean the end of traditional advertising and advertising agencies As We Know It. What it does give us, though, is another disruptive signal that much is changing in the way some things are done, and the speed of that change is increasing.

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Some reports say the new name means “Valley Song,” but the translation “Harvest Song” fits in better with Google’s reasoning. Gu Ge, says Forbes, “draws on rural Chinese traditions to describe a fruitful and rewarding experience.”

One might also note that the term “harvest” is more closely related to “retrieve.” Gu Ge is the only alternative name Google uses worldwide.

(Before you speculate on name-change reasoning based on the legendary Coca-Cola “bite the wax tadpole” snafu, read up on half-myth here. Then research the Chevy Nova in Spanish-speaking countries too – we wouldn’t want you to embarrass yourself at the next foreign-market meeting.)

According to the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt downplayed monetary motives for moving into the Chinese market.

“China is important not for revenue, though more revenue is always good,” Schmidt told reporters in Beijing.” China is important because a fifth of the world’s population lives in China, and a large proportion of them will be Internet users.”

Reaching the masses has been the central counterweight in Google’s argument for agreeing to censor its search engine results on servers located within Chinese borders. Some estimates count 200 million Internet users in the communist nation.

According to the WSJ, Schmidt said the company had received no complaints from Chinese users about censoring results.

The same can’t be said for neighboring democracy and former Chinese province Taiwan. Google was publicly lambasted by Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian for choosing profits over freedom of speech.

Schmidt defended Google’s position in China by reiterating the company’s goal to serve up information to Chinese citizens while being committed to obeying Chinese law.

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BL Ochman figured the fact that negative ads were left on the site over a weekend was a sure sign that the execs in charge weren’t paying attention. Over at AdRants, eyes are rolling over the notion that anyone could construe the campaign as positive. (After reading a New York Times piece, the folks at Adrants saw it differently.)

Perhaps the final word, though, comes from Ed Peper, Chevrolet General Manager, in his post yesterday on GM’s Fastlane blog:

Early on we made the decision that if we were to hold this contest, in which we invite anyone to create an ad, in an open forum, that we would be summarily destroyed in the blogosphere if we censored the ads based on their viewpoint. So, we adopted a position of openness and transparency, and decided that we would welcome the debate. (As an aside, we have been truly disappointed by the number of submissions we had to filter out because of their vulgar content.) I won’t bore you with the details, but the overwhelming majority of the 22,000 submissions thus far have been earnest attempts at creating positive advertisements

We at GM are not culturally unaware; we realize that there are people who would never purchase an SUV. That’s why we make more vehicles that get over 30 miles-per-gallon than any other manufacturer. That is why Chevy offers vehicles ranging from the Aveo (starting under $10,000, 34mpg) to the Tahoe ($34,000, 22mpg). In short, we make vehicles that serve the needs for customers of all walks of life and we’re proud of that.

So, a few media pundits seem to think this social media program was a failure and others seem to revel in the apparent anarchy. We, on the other hand, welcome the opportunity to clarify the facts regarding fuel economy, vehicles equipped with E85 capability, and consumer choice. In our opinion, this has been one of the most creative and successful promotions we have done. And we invite you back to see the final “Board Room” as we select the winning entry at Chevy Apprentice on April 27.

Anyway, it sure got people talking about the Tahoe. Which was the whole idea, after all.

Some may dismiss this as a trumped up story to excuse the infusion of negative ads created on the site. But if Peper is honest about his agreement to allow the negative into an open-source marketing effort, then it’s to his-and GM’s-credit. I only hope the Delphi situation doesn’t bring the walls crashing down around GM before its social networking efforts have a chance to influence the cars that roll off its assembly line in the next few years.

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At the Chevy Apprentice website, people can enter a contest through an innovative method of building a commercial for the Chevy Tahoe by dragging and dropping image clips, and adding superimposed text to the images. Then a music track backing the commercial can be added.

What could possibly go wrong?

How about a slew of global warming complaints and vicious anti-SUV spots quickly becoming viral videos and zipping around the Internet instead?

Those viral spots quickly gave General Motors a PR headache as numerous criticisms of the company, the Bush Administration, and SUV owners became the focus of hundreds of people all building user-generated content.

CNet collected some of the better creations that have probably already vanished from the website, though to GM’s credit it is not pulling every ad that has a negative tone. One of the funnier creations imposed this text over scenes of a Chevy Tahoe on the roll:

A host of other spots, many much more critical and less publishable, have been collected by the Democratic Underground website. Quite a few commercials have already been removed by GM.

The negative approach to the contest can provide GM and other big companies with a valuable lesson on how to improve their SUV marketing. Tara Hunt blogged about that in a recent post:

B.L. Ochman responded to the kerfuffle by pointing out what should have been painfully obvious to GM anyway:

Apparently GM’s Detroit leadership doesn’t use the Internet much on weekends. CNet reported on how the April Fool’s weekend served as the launching ground for hundreds of these ads. The automaker didn’t respond until after the weekend to start culling the more egregious spots from the contest.

A GM spokesperson said in the report that more than 80 percent of the commercials depict the Tahoe in a favorable light.

“There are many different opinions and many different people, and we recognize that,” said Melisa Tezanos, a GM spokeswoman.

By that percentage, about 4,000 of the 21,000+ ads submitted contained a negative tone. Interested readers can visit the contest site and create ad entries to the contest through April 10th. It’s unlikely that any ad reading “2007 Chevy Tahoe…Maybe he’s just…’compensating’…for something” will make it to the airwaves, though.

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To summarize: Chevy has set up a site where anyone can create his or her own commercial, splicing together a number of video clips and background music supplied by Chevy. More importantly, these user-generated commercials can have text floating over the images of the creator’s choosing. Therein lies the rub. It’s no surprise (to anyone with an IQ above room temperature) that this has unleashed the creative juices of a number of folks who have found the perfect platform for their messages.

A couple of examples that C|Net has archived can be found here. (Go ahead, check them out if you haven’t seen them. We’ll be here when you get back.)

Thoughts on the situation so far:

Tara Hunt: “[Chevy] should taking advantage of the valuable (even if it is vitriolic) feedback that they are getting and use this as an opportunity to change direction and survive into the future of this community-driven market.”

Doc: “Watch.”

B. L. Ochman: “Proving that execs at big companies, and their agencies, don’t monitor what’s being said online over the weekend, Chevy left thousands of anti-Chevy consumer-made ads on the Chevy Apprentice make-your-own-commercial site this weekend.”

Seth Godin: “Chevy is learning this the hard way with their Tahoe campaign… in which the best commercials are the ones that say, ‘Don’t buy me!’”

TechDirt: “It seems like perhaps GM understood what would happen a lot more than the so-called ‘experts’ give them credit for. In this day, anyone opening up such a contest has to know that it’ll be used for ‘anti’ ads. It’s happened so often that they must have expected it. In fact, by then being open about it, GM is getting even more mileage from this campaign, and making it appear that they are more open to listening to those who disagree with them…So, it’s questionable as to whether or not GM was ‘slow to react’ or if they are simply doing everything according to plan.”

AdRants: “Negative things will always be said about a brand. Understanding and accepting opposing views does far more for a brand’s mojo than killing off divergent opinion. Let’s hope this is what’s happening at Chevy and not that the ads are still up because it’s the weekend and big companies don’t work weekends.”

Carl: “I don’t understand how otherwise rational people look at this campaign as a positive. It would be like letting people create print ads for McDonalds, and publishing all of the ads that talk about cholesterol, fat, calories, carbohydrates and fat kids. And then patting themselves on the back for letting people ‘speak their mind’ and for ‘understanding social networking.’ This campaign can only damage the brand by reinforcing the negatives. Isn’t this marketing 101? The best GM can hope for is to convince all of the people who already hate the product that GM is a cool company with products they hate.”

And a whole bunch more.

I think there are a few things to think about here. One perspective that that this is, in some ways, akin to the LA Times wikitorial fiasco. If that’s the case…the GM didn’t consider the possibility that people would create ads that were not in line with GM’s vision of what should be done…then shame on GM. Any opportunity for “user-generated” media in any topic where there are strong feelings will generate the same spectrum of responses. If that’s the case, GM was simply Not Thinking. Any subject that evokes passionate responses will naturally have this outcome.

A thought: Perhaps a worthwhile tactic to take in these types of situations is to proactively set up areas/categories for the primary viewpoints that are likely to emerge. In the LA Times case, setting up two wikitorials (one “pro-war” and one “anti-war”) may have radically changed the outcome of their experiment. In Chevy’s case, allowing the “directors” of the videos to classify them as “pro-SUV” and “anti-SUV” would have been one way to proactively address the problem. It’s what Scoble did here (“Let The Venom Flow!”), and it’s a very effective tactic in cases where this type of activity is likely to occur. It’s going to happen. Might as well embrace it.

So, it seems from my vantage point that there are three “standard” things that Chevy could do. The options…

• Option 1: Pull the negative ads
• Option 2: Leave the negative ads, do nothing (It’s the Marc Canter approach: “I don’t give a damn about what anyone says about me, just spell my name right.”)
• Option 3: Leave the negative ads, engage

Option 1 is the Bad option. If they go down that road, they’ll get crucified.

Option 2 is an OK option. They may be called “clueless,” but they’ll still be getting some buzz out of the campaign. (And, pragmatically, the folks who are creating the negative ads — as well as the individuals who find that the negative ads resonate with them — probably aren’t going to be buying an SUV anytime soon, anyway.)

Option 3 is a Pretty Good option. In addition to leaving the ads up, trying to understand what the negative-ad-creators are attempting to communicate and putting some plans in place to ACTUALLY address the concerns could rocket GM forward in this regard, if they are able to make some commitments and meet them. There’s some upside here, if they get their act together.

What do you think GM should do, if anything?

UPDATE:

Chevy responds in the NYTimes (registration or bugmenot req’d). The money quote, from Chevy representative Melisa Tezanos:

“We anticipated that there would be critical submissions. You do turn over your brand to the public, and we knew that we were going to get some bad with the good. But it’s part of playing in this space.” (via Adrants)

So, it’s at least Option 2. Wanna trade that and go for door #3, Melisa?

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As a footnote, it’s worth noting that not all the ads are anti-Chevy or anti-SUV. Some are chuckleworthy. Examples:

Snakes On An SUV! (not advised for those with an aversion to profanity)

Badgerbadgerbadger (disclosure: we did this one, inspired by this)

Way too Emo (for Kathy Sierra, apparently)

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Christopher Carfi, CEO and co-founder of Cerado, looks at sales, marketing, and the business experience from the customers point of view. He currently is focused on understanding how emerging social technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking are enabling the creation of new types of customer-driven communities. He is the author of the Social Customer Manifesto weblog, and has been occasionally told that he drives and snowboards just a little too quickly.

It was heavily featured in the show. Chevy set up a site where consumers can click and drag commercial components together to create an ad.

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Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.

He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.