What is marketers' speed to market? Oh, about 11 months

And that's a best case scenario.

Such is the case where EA took about 11 months to respond to Levinator25, who introduced the "Jesus shot" in EA's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

In the official response, EA directly addresses Levinator25 in promoting Tiger Woods 09. Here's the video

All in all, it's awesome. My first reaction was to check if Levinator25 was real. He appears to be 100% gamer.

Bravo! I love it.

I only have one question for EA and/or Levinator25: did EA in any way, shape or form compensate, recognize (other than in the video) and/or reward him for his nugget of content?

And if the answer is no, is EA in essence, taking advantage of one of their most passionate customers?

I'm absolutely giving EA the benefit of the doubt on this one, until proven otherwise.

This whole episode raises really interesting questions about a phenomenon which will only be on the rise:

• Should EA have taken less time to respond and capitalize? It's highly probably that the timing really just coincided with the release of the new TW.
• Did they lose any momentum in doing so?
• Who discovered the video?
• Could EA have done more...other than just create a promotional video (ok...AD)? Could they have put Levinator25's video into the actual game? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one...
• Why do brands take so long in general...if at all...do respond?

Oh and one more thing, this does remind me of my little Tiger Woods "viral" video and Nike's lack of response.

I wonder if they'd have done differently if this had happened today...

Big hat tip to Sebastian