From Cindy Levine on May 26, 2007

This particular article on the marketing strategy behind leveraging CGM as a tactic, seems to focus way too narrowly on the cost factor (which doesn't really seem to be a factor at all, and it's unclear why the NYT or Heinz would bother with all the space devoted to that topic).
Marketers are most likely to employ this tactic in an effort to seek deeper consumer involvement with their brand, and have likely weighed the pros/cons and risks associated with putting this degree of control in consumers' hands. For Heinz, which is a well-known, likely well-loved, yet not high involvement brand -- this can likely work only to their advantage, regardless of how far consumers go with their imagination.
Now, on the topic of having consumers generate advertising and how difficult or easy that is, and new-found appreciation for the talent in the industry it's also interesting to me that nowhere (not even really on the contest's website) is there any mention of the strategy Heinz is looking to execute against. All good creatives and account managers know that strong creative execution can only really happen as an outgrowth of strong and focused strategic direction. In this instance the "creatives" were given license to create whatever they wanted, absent any real strategic direction - so the "client" can't really argue with the results, now can they?