Consumer generated content - A term that is the basis behind social media. The idea that it is everyday people, the public you might say, that are creating the content that makes up these sites. The immese popularity of YouTube, with people watching 2 billion videos per day, and every minute, there is 24 hours worth of video content being uploaded, YouTube is a great example of how popular consumer generated content is.
The interesting thing about consumer generated content is that there is no way to control it. This is a problem for many companys as a lot of videos posted on YouTube are related to different brands and companys - whether they be advertisements, spoof videos, testimonials, etc. The decision companies have to make is whether to encourage consumer generated content, or to disapprove of it and take action against it.
The decision to accept or reject consumer generated content is a personal decision that varies amongst companies. There is a growing trend however of companies that are moving forward in their thinking and beginning to accept and even encourage consumer generated content.
A great example of a brand encouraging consumers to create content for their brand is the Doritos 'Make an Ad, Make a Fortune' competition where they encouraged consumers to create their own Doritos ad. A panel of judges, including Merrick Watts selected the top three clips out of an amazing 1,350 entries. The top three ads having being chosen, Doritos is now involving the public again to vote for their favourite ad. I think this is a great campaign idea for Doritos as it gets their consumers involved in the brand, and at the same time, they will end up with an ad that will most likely be more accepted by consumers as it was their peers that created the ads.
Consumer generated content can be an amazing tool for companys. Especially with generation Y, push marketing is having little impact on them. Consumer generated content takes word of mouth to a whole new level with individual's peers being the ones to create the content. Generation Y individuals are more likely to pay attention to an advertisement (video) that their peers have created, than having companies force advertising onto them.
What do other people think? Do you think that companies should encourage consumer generated content? What do you think about the Doritos campaign?
great idea. Doritos get a huge selection of videos which they can then choose between when selecting what image/advertisement they are wanting to use. Much cheaper and preferential then getting an advertising firm to create a number of selections - and hope that its what they are looking for!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes it would help with it being generated by gen y'ers as they are more likely to be in touch with the language that the targeted consumers are using.
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Definitely, I think companies now aday should encourage consumer generated content, especially if they are targeting gen-Y and teenagers, like Doritos for example.
ReplyDeleteBut for some upper class brands i.e. LV or Rolex, I don't think consumer generated content would be good idea for them, because they won't be able to control their brand voice, and that may be too risky for them as their brand image is very important. So yes, it depends on the brand.
Very creative video, like it :)
good catch there teacup - definitely wont work for every brand, that need to control brand voice and image is really important!
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Doritos are lucky that they are such a big brand, attracting so many entries. Of course there'll be hundreds that are completely unsuitable (and possibly detrimental to their brand), but the average punter won't see those, and will instead only focus on the "top three" chosen by Doritos - consistent with their desired brand image, of course!
ReplyDeleteI guess other companies would have to be careful about over doing this idea, because people could quickly get sick of the concept. 1350 entries is quite a good return I think - do you know of any other companies that have used this idea?
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