[Picture:
http://www.geocities.com/heldenkline/Hensel.html]
Message
Boards: Also known as “Internet
forums,” these evolved out of necessity for an easy means of
communication. The first message boards, which date from around 1995,
acted as dial-up bulletin boards and allowed for a sense of virtual
community between regular users (Wikipedia). This idea of belonging to a
“virtual community” becomes extremely important in later years when social
networking sites gain popularity.
Blogs: Eventually, the CGC on the Internet gets even more organized with the
coining of the term “blog,” which Webopedia defines as “Short for
Web-log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible
personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often
reflect the personality of the author.”
While this is similar to
the self-published sites, it is important to note that blogs also share
many similarities with message boards including the ability for other
viewers to interact by commenting on another person’s blog. The popularity
of “blogging” encouraged the development of many browser-based software
programs such as WordPress, Blogger or LiveJournal which allow consumers
to blog with little or no web publishing knowledge (Wikipedia).
[Picture: http://www.blogger.com/start]
YouTube: One of the
most well known examples of consumer generated content has recently been named
the third most influential brand in the world according to a survey run by
online magazine brandchannel.com (Canning, 2007). This “online video portal”
owes its success to growing CGC trends which propelled it past more
established brands such as Starbucks, Microsoft and Coca-Cola (Canning, 2007).
Quite a feat for a brand that has utilized no advertising of any kind and can
only be truly consumed with a fast Internet connection.
[Picture:
http://www.youtube.com]
The time in which Hollywood
was solely in control of all video entertainment is over now that consumers
have the power. Some people (mostly over 40) wonder what the appeal is. Like
most CGC, it is about sharing, but it is also about the “futile aspirations of
the everyman to break out of his lonely anonymous life of quiet desperation,
to step out in front of the whole world and be somebody” (Garfield, 2006).
Similar to the reality shows on television, it is about the fame.
With more than 65,000
uploads a day, YouTube has enough CGC to fill a hundred sites, so it seemed
almost natural for Google to pay $1.65 billion for it in 2006 (Garfield,
2006). Unfortunately, Google now has the immense task of figuring out a new
business model that will turn a profit on the CGC behemoth.
Wikipedia:
The same survey that placed YouTube in the number three spot has also named
Wikipedia the fourth most influential brand in the world (Canning, 2007). This
free content, online encyclopedia contains articles that “can be edited by
anyone with access to the web site” (Wikipedia.com). As a form of consumer
generated content, this is one of the more academic examples. Because anyone
can contribute to the database, the entries in Wikipedia are broad, varied and
extensive.
[Picture:
www.wikipedia.org]
The timeliness of
entry updates is one of Wikipedia’s greatest strengths. All changes are made
instantly available to other users online, thus allowing for up-to-date, more
accurate information. This is also a disadvantage however, in that false
claims and inconsistencies are not checked before posting, and may remain on
the site for days, weeks or even months before the mistake is noticed.
MySpace / Facebook:
These free social networking
websites, and others similar to them, offer “an interactive, user-submitted
network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and
videos” (Wikipedia.com). While Facebook was originally started for university
students, it has since opened its gates to anyone involved in a "network."
This includes high schools, organizations, clubs, corporations, and other
work-related networks. All social networking websites have subtle differences,
but the main features are often the same.
[Picture: www.myspace.com]
These features include
profiles, in which users can describe themselves, list their interests and
hobbies, and provide pictures. It is common to also have a “friends” section
that lists others in the network with names or photos. Users can upload
pictures as well as videos and music to personalize their individual sites.
The “comments” section is
one of the most widely used features, as it allows users to post messages to
other users in the database. Many criticisms of social networking sites
involve the issue of privacy, which can be difficult for users to maintain,
and poses problems with concern to protection of millions of underage users
that log in on a regular basis. Still, as a form of consumer generated
content, few other websites make it so easy to maintain a profile and
contribute content online
What does CGC mean for advertising?
With regard to the
advertising world, consumer generated content has proven to be a precarious
outlay that is as confusing as it is risky. It started simply with online
commerce sites providing methods for consumer feedback. This evolved into the
ubiquitous “consumer review” sections. The most famous of which is the format
used by Amazon.com.
[Picture:
www.amazon.com]
Amazon’s methods are some of
the most successful consumer feedback programs online today. Not only do they
encourage consumers to write reviews, but they request this feedback “by
determining the optimal times to send [consumers] emails or reminders” (Kuchinskas,
2005). The system is highly organized; consumers are grouped and marketed to
according to their past purchases and views. Recommendations are also made to
Amazon shoppers based on the information gathered, and on the information the
company has about what similar shoppers purchase (Kuchinskas, 2005). A recent
Yahoo! Autos study backs up this notion that consumers want to participate
more in online exchanges. It found that “85% of online shoppers consider
consumer-generated content, participation and reviews to be key elements of
researching new vehicle purchases” (Consumer-Generated Content).
After the novelty of leaving
feedback about purchases wore off, consumers have begun to depend upon these
systems. Many customers are even wary of purchasing online if the site fails
to provide consumer feedback. The consumer opinion site Epinions.com started
in 1999, and has grown into a huge database of customer feedback on products
in dozens of categories.
[Picture:
www.epinions.com]
The site, owned by
Shopping.com, bills itself as a “premier consumer reviews platform on the Web
and a reliable source for valuable consumer insight, unbiased advice, in-depth
product evaluations and personalized recommendations” (Epinions.com).
Ecommerce sites continue to adopt customer review programs as consumers
continue to demand them. By the end of 2006, approximately 43% of all
ecommerce sites contained some form of consumer reviews or ratings programs
for their products (Gogoi, 2007).
This is only a small
beginning of the relationship between advertising and consumer generated
content. Companies have quickly realized how much consumers enjoy
participating in the marketing of their products and have begun creating newer
advertising campaigns that invite even more participation.
Consumers in Control
Product recommendations are
an excellent start, but many industry watchers are concerned about what is
next. In an age of Web 2.0 and permission marketing, consumers expect more
than just an option for feedback on the products they purchase. It has become
less about contributing, and more about controlling. This power struggle
between advertisers and consumers is a sign of a new age of advertising, one
in which consumers take control and it is the advertisers who must listen.
Still, questions
remain about how much control consumers should have, and whether companies
should make efforts to give control away or to ignore the exchange altogether
and accept what happens. Many companies have taken this laissez faire attitude
out of fear of losing control over their brand completely and ruining the
equity they had established.
When an unknown lawyer and
juggler posted a video in which they lined up bottles of Coca-Cola and dropped
Mentos into them to create fizzing fountains of soda, millions of viewers
around the world logged on to watch (Mann, 2007). Brands must then decide what
role, if any, they should play when consumers voluntarily produce positive
viral content.
[Picture: www.eepybird.com]
Embrace it:
Perfetti Van Melle, maker of Mentos, made the quick decision to align the
brand with the CGC (Morrissey, 2006). Mentos estimated that the buzz created
by the video alone was worth around $10 million. They placed the original
video on their website along with a new consumer generated video contest for
the best Mentos/soda combinations. As of last September, the contest had
attracted hundreds of submissions and hundreds of thousands of views
(Morrissey, 2006).
Ignore it:
Coca-Cola, however, chose to do nothing and let the video circulate on its own
without support. Susan McDermott, director of communications for Coca-Cola
North America, explains their inaction, “We think people are enjoying this
video because it’s underground. We have no marketing plans for it” (Halpern,
2006). In this case, it is very difficult to determine which course of action
is correct since there are no proven business strategies for CGC viral
marketing.
What is certain is that
consumers want more control, and given some, will want even more. The chart
below shows the 2006 online traffic report for consumer-controlled Wikipedia
as it compares to Encarta. The audience continues to climb as more users “want
to contribute to and edit entries, and more people are reading them” (Fox,
2006).
The blue line represents
Wikipedia, the red is Encarta. Click the graph to read more about CGC trends
from the Pew Internet Project.
Although the concept seems
new, consumer generated content has been a part of advertising for a long
time. In the past, companies have asked customers to send in their own designs
and drawings for a new logo or character, sometimes offering prizes to
winners. There were also surveys in which customers were asked to vote on a
product or campaign idea to determine which would stay and which would be
discontinued. Most of this traditional CGC however, involved companies
directly eliciting input from consumers in a narrow, strictly defined format.
Consumers simply lacked the
tools to offer up their own brand ideas without incentives. Computers (and to
a larger extent, the Internet), have changed the way in which consumers
communicate with companies. Now they have the tools necessary to create, as
well as the ability to share their creations for the entire web to see. Sites
like YouTube are especially promising for possible brand appearances.
Many brands are of course
not willing to wait around for a consumer to voluntarily produce a favorable
CGC promotion. The solution here is simply to request content from consumers,
but figuring out how to do this has proven far more complicated.
Chevrolet:
Chevrolet took small steps into their CGC foray with their Super Bowl XLI
campaign. After the traditional high-budget commercial aired during the game,
consumers were encouraged to visit a website (www.chevy.com/carwash),
and upload photos of themselves. Chevrolet worked with Personiva, a San
Francisco-based media company, that provides the facial recognition technology
used on the site to extract faces out of the uploaded photos and input them
into the advertisement.
[Picture: www.chevrolet.com/carwash]
Viewers can upload as many
pictures as they like and choose which characters to drag and drop the faces
on. When finished, they can watch the video, share it, and post it to the
website’s gallery. Another feature is that the program provides a URL link and
the code required for embedding the video in existing sites. This allows
consumers to bring the content they create on the Chevrolet site to other CGC
websites such as MySpace and Facebook.
In the Chevrolet example,
the CGC is highly limited, controlled and requested. Consumers are not able to
change anything in the commercial other than the faces of the characters.
According to Personiva, the goal is to help businesses embrace CGC and “combat
the problem of potential customers watching television programs on personal
video recorders that eliminate the commercials” (Talalay, 2007).
Art Schram, director of
product management at Personiva, believes pairing advertising and CGC is the
only way to engage consumers; “a key measuring stick right now in terms of
advertising is user and consumer engagement. How do you get someone to see
your advertisement or billboard and then get them engaged with your brand
message? This is smack in the middle of that” (Talalay, 2007).
As for Campbell-Ewald,
advertising agency for Chevrolet, the purpose behind the advertisement and its
interactive counterpart is simply to target a younger audience and show them
that “Chevy’s far out, always trying to be unique and different and reflect
what is cool and hip” (Talalay, 2007). Whether or not the campaign
accomplishes this remains to be seen.
Chevrolet 2:
In 2006, before the Personiva Super Bowl campaign, Chevrolet made a riskier
venture into the world of consumer generated advertising (CGA). The company
invited consumers to participate in an online contest to create the best
television advertisement for the new Tahoe. This time, however, less was
controlled by Chevrolet. They provided video and music clips, and consumers
had control over how to place the clips together, and to act as copywriters by
providing captions (Rose, 2006). Chevrolet allowed submissions to remain on
the site regardless of whether or not they put the Tahoe in a positive light.
Most
of the 30,000 entries flaunted the new features of the Tahoe, but there were
negative entries as well, some of which became very popular and were linked to
on other CGC sites such as YouTube and blogs.
Although Chevrolet considers
the campaign a success, (it generated over 600,000 visits to the site), others
are not so sure if the risks outweigh the rewards. Most of the submitted
content (84%) was positive, but the remaining negative responses circulated
more rapidly online. Consumer generated advertising is such a new arena that
brands “do not seem to have found a way to give consumers power without
leaving themselves open for embarrassment” (Simms, 2007).
It
seems that the Internet is the magic key that opens the door to control for
users. It is the users, not the marketers who “control the dialog online, and
never more so than when they’re invited to contribute their own thoughts”
(Rose, 2007).
A 2006
Pew Internet study reports that more than one third of Internet users have
posted something online, and they do so because it is empowering to share
their work. Advertisers can make the process easier by providing tools and
encouragement that allow consumers to express how they feel about brands.
Cadbury:
Another example of consumer generated advertising can be seen from Cadbury,
who asked consumers to submit videos of themselves eating the candy eggs
(Simms, 2007). This is an extension of their long running “how do you eat
yours?” campaign and is an excellent example of how to use online CGA as part
of a marketing mix instead of a haphazard experiment.
MasterCard:
In 2006, MasterCard
gave consumers some control with their “Priceless” campaign. Consumers can log
on to priceless.com and fill in the blanks of existing video. For example, one
advertisement depicts a man standing on a sailboat while the announcer recites
“blank” along with different dollar amounts. After the man is delivered a note
by a second man in a small rowboat, he jumps into the water (Howard, 2006).
The only incentive for consumers to contribute their own copy is the chance to
have their copy run on television and the website. The simplicity of
participation may have contributed to the fact that over 100,000 entries were
submitted. Still, with such narrow parameters for consumers to contribute,
consumers may fail to feel empowered by their efforts.
Nike Inc.:
Nike was lucky to have Joseph Jaffe, author of Life After the 30-Second
Spot, present at the Masters tour in 2005. He witnessed Tiger Woods make
an “improbable chip on the 16th green [. . .] the ball came to a complete stop
on the edge of the hole – Nike branding clearly evident – and then, as if
swayed by some invisible force (by the swoosh itself?), fell, Caddyshack-style,
into the cup” (Jaffe, 2005).
With very little editing, he
took video footage of the shot and uploaded two versions of it to his blog (jaffejuice.com).
It took less than an hour to make and the cost was zero. Jaffe believes that
consumers understand brands more than advertisers give them credit for since
they “live, experience, internalize and consume” the brands every day (Jaffe,
2005).
After three weeks,
Nike came out with its own commercial of the event; a more predictable (and
far less timely) 30-second spot that ran on cable television. Here is an
example of how difficult it is for larger brands to capitalize on advertising
opportunities in ways that only consumers can. With more effort and
creativity, Nike could have encouraged the spread of Jaffe’s consumer
generated advertising (CGA). Instead they spent time and money producing their
own corporate 30-second television spot, without the edgy, consumer-tone that
makes CGA so appealing.
Advantages & Disadvantages of
CGA
The trends involving
consumer generated content online are promising. However, very little data
exists for how consumer generated advertising will fair in the years
to come. Ad industry professionals have weighed in, and while many feel that
CGA is a passing fad, others point out the successes of CGA campaigns so far.
Mark Stevens, author
of Your Marketing Sucks, believes that CGA is a sign that advertisers have
lost their creativity. In reference to CGA in the last Super Bowl, he called
it the “Moron Bowl, because agencies are admitting they have no ideas” (Mann,
2007).
Ideas or not, many in the
industry feel that CGA is simply unavoidable as the entire marketing spectrum
shifts. Diane Hessan, president of social network Communispace, defends the
control shift, “Consumers want to be directly involved in providing advice
that will lead to better products and brand experiences, and they want to be
heard [. . .] This, not just ads, is at the heart of today’s
consumer-in-control marketing movement” (Bloom, 2007).
Bob Garfield, author of
marketing essay “Listenomics,” thinks CGA is a favorable product of the Web
2.0 era. Garfield also supports the idea that the power shift is about more
than whether people can produce ads than it is about “the increasing sway they
hold over any product’s success [. . .] the honest insight and information
they offer [. . .] about their willingness to co-create” (Bloom, 2007).
Even if consumer
generated advertising is unavoidable, advertisers should still be wary of the
unknown CGA effects. Traditional advertising rules do not apply online, which
makes it even more difficult to regulate and measure consumer-created
advertisements on the Web. Even when solicitations for CGA are strictly
outlined and monitored, there is always the probable chance that consumers
will create content that was unintended by advertisers or just plain negative.
The risks may still be worth
a CGA gamble, however, when all the favorable possibilities are considered.
The Internet can provide a highly focused, niche audience. This is imperative
for brands who want to create edgier advertising.
Heavy.com is an entertainment site of CGC
videos, radio, promotional Internet channels and social networking dedicated
to young males. In 2005 the site gave masks of the Burger King mascot to its
most devoted users. Some consumers then created humorous videos with the
“King” masks and submitted them to the site, including a “racy video showing
the masked King involved in a faux striptease” (Sanders, 2006).
A staggering 4.1 million
visitors to the site viewed the video, for which Burger King has taken no part
in either encouraging or suppressing. Such content, while highly popular with
the twenty-something male segment, would have been difficult to sell to
network or cable television. In this case, Burger King was lucky to have such
a windfall and should encourage similar participation in the future. The brand
and target audience are prime for more Internet CGA campaigns.
Faking CGA
One downside for any brand
is that of losing credibility, and nothing will upset consumers more than the
realization they have been duped or conned. Consumer reviews, which can play a
large part in purchases, are one arena where consumers are growing more
skeptical. Jeff Boyd,
Priceline’s Chief Executive has seen a rise in false reviews in the past
few years, “We have certainly seen instances [. . .] where insiders have put
up reviews for a particular hotel or a particular thing and it’s not a
legitimate review. It’s somebody who’s in effect been paid to make the
property look good” (Reuters, 2007).
Travel site
TripAdvisor addresses the problem by
employing people trained in fraud detection to read every review before it is
posted. As one of the earliest forms of online CGA, it would not be a stretch
to imagine that such mistrust will eventually spill over to other forms of
consumer generated advertising.
CGA popularity and
cutting risk by producing their own content that is made to look like it
was consumer-produced. In 2006, as part of the “The computer is personal
again” campaign, Hewlett-Packard created a blog (fingerskilz.tv)
and a short video which seeded on video-sharing sites like YouTube. The HP
videos were “typical YouTube fare: a handheld digital camera, bad lighting
and a goofy subject matter” (Morrissey, 2007). The central character,
“Dave,” appeared to be an office worker with a dexterous talent for
incredible tricks using a rolled up ball of paper. Dave, actually an actor
hired by McCann Worldgroup, attracted over 230,000 viewers.
[Picture: fingerskilz.tv]
This is one example of
advertisers trying to “toe the line between deceiving users into passing
around their messages and surprising them with clever campaigns to ignite
buzz” (Morrissey). HP did leave hints that the videos were a product of
branding; an HP computer sits in the background of the video and an HP banner
ad is located on the blog.
Another big difference is
that the tricks were not real. The paper wad was inserted using a computer
graphics program, and while several blogs linking to the HP site professed
their disbelief, there were also many believers who thought the tricks and
video were real. Fingerskilz.tv was updated in July 2006 with a new blog entry
from “Dave,” professing HP’s involvement and thanking viewers for their
support. It is not exactly an apology to all the viewers who had been fooled
into reading the fake blog’s updates for several weeks. Previous entries read
like they were written from a legitimate blogger:
“Decided to stay late
the other night and practice my ball control instead of heading out to the pub
like a normal bloke. I kinda liked this little move - a behind the leg cross.
Took me a while to get it right but it was well worth it” (fingerskilz.tv).
James Hilton, global
director at AKQA, was partly responsible for a similar video in a viral
Coca-Cola campaign. He defends the fake CGA by explaining that there “is a
difference between being mischievous and lying to someone” (Morrissey, 2006).
Although he admits that consumers do not like being conned, Hilton believes
consumers “like being played with” (Morrissey, 2006). Many consumers,
particularly those outraged by fake customer reviews, probably beg to differ.
Conclusion
The Internet, with its
infinite segmenting possibilities, low cost and timeliness unlike any other
media is proving to be an ideal stomping ground for consumer generated content
(CGC) and consumer generated advertising (CGA) alike. Nowhere else can ad
industry execs and everyday consumers have equal opportunities to build a
brand up or bring it crashing down.
Though the risks for
utilizing consumer generated advertising are great, the payoff can be far
greater. The trick, it seems, is finding the fine line between over regulating
solicitations for consumer input and throwing the brand to the wolves. In many
cases, consumers have already proven voluntarily that they are more than
capable of producing effective, entertaining advertising, (and without any
prompting to do so!) Give consumers a little encouragement and the
possibilities are endless.
Even if CGA proves to be a
passing fad in the long run, many brands cannot afford to miss out on the
benefits it offers today. There will always be a few spoilsports who misuse
the opportunities, but if the brand is willing and the target is right -- the
time is now.
