User Generated Online Video Ads: New Start-ups Harness Ad Creators far from Madison Avenue

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A number of start-ups are building businesses by organizing independent video makers to create online video commercials for national brands. 

Unlike the San Francisco-based TurnHere, which has organized a network of independent videographers to create editorial content, these start-ups are reaching out to independent video makers to make ads. These are not mash-ups, but highly organized RFP's with assignments and sizable compensation in some cases.

Adweek's Eleftheria Parpas wrote a round-up of this trend last week.

Mark Walsh, best known in the last bubble as the founder of VerticalNet, has launched a company called Genius Rocket.  (Check out this profile of Mark and VerticalNet in Business Week from 2000.)

Also in the space is Brickfish. 

XLNTads.com is creating a network of hundreds of videographers.  It is about to launch an RFP for creative for a Nestle 100 Grand bar.

I caught up with XLNT's Mark Schoneveld in San Francisco last month for the NewTeeVee conference.  Jackson West of NewTeeVee wrote about XLNTads earlier this year.

You can find the video of Mark right here.

-- Andy Plesser