Firefox Flicks, a video contest that asked Firefox enthusiasts to help promote Firefox through short films...

...announced its winners at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

This is absolute proof that a company that recognizes and encourages the creativity of its supporters is the strongest force in marketing.

Your customers are incredibly smart, and remarkably creative. Trust them! They can create a far better marketing message than you can. Let them do it.

The grand prize winner, "Daredevil," will be short-listed for the NY Festival of Advertising's 2006 International Advertising Awards in May, and the finalists' Firefox videos will be incorporated into Mozilla's 2006 marketing activities. The Firefox Flicks campaign will continue throughout 2006.

The first prize went to Pete Macomber, a professional creator of music videos, commercials and screenplays. It's about a young girl whose "other browser is a surfboard."

Apparently, the promise of a wide audience was enough to get professionals as well as amateurs interested in entering the contest, which had more than 300 submissions.

In November 2004, Spread Firefox volunteers designed and underwrote a two-page ad in the New York Times to announce the release of Firefox 1.0. The New York Times campaign kicked off Mozilla's grassroots marketing.