| |||||||||||
PRINT
COMMENT
SUBSCRIBE
RSSUser-generated advertising is not the future of advertising. The task of imagining, producing and distributing a compelling brand message will not be left to whoever chooses to pick up a webcam on a random Sunday afternoon. Instead, I propose that the radical shift, commonly mis-titled user-generated advertising, descending over the world of advertising is in fact better called distributed creative development (couldn’t find the term on a Google search, so let’s coin it on the Spin).
If you were at OMMA Hollywood last week, you were no doubt inspired (or worried) by the success story of Doritos’ “user-generated” Super Bowl commercial and feel-good story surrounding the teams that produced the winning spots. But if you watched the presentation, you would have seen that there was a significant coordinated effort to establish and promote the contest --- including developing the technology platform for participation, the operations for submission review, and numerous other moving pieces that had to work in perfect unison. The coordinated achievement incorporated the efforts of Doritos’ creative agency, PR, media buying, among other partners. There was direction given to the participants, similar to the direction a brand might give any agency pre-pitch. In the end, it was not a “set it and forget it” solution, it was a carefully, and might I add artfully, managed process.
One of the winning teams was present to receive Doritos Managing Director Jason McDonell’s glowing endorsement for future work from the advertisers in the audience. I don’t think I missed the stipulation that the winning team had to be users of whatever product was going to approach them for work. I am sure they would have been open to work from a number of brands. Wouldn’t that make them a talented creative/production group looking to make a profession of advertising, not a “user”? In fact, that’s exactly what they are.
Meet Joe Marchese at OMMA Global San Francisco!
Joe Marchese will be there speaking during "Social Media is Not Advertising (Or is It?)" on March 17 at 4:15 PM. Top executives will be there. Will you?
Register today and save.
Register today and save.
The truth is that many entrants in these types of contests (advertising, video, music etc.) are aspiring professionals, or at least hobbyists approaching amateur status. For this reason, “user”-generated advertising contests can demonstrate many characteristics similar to an open call for creative development. In this open call the prize money plus the perceived value of recognition is the total compensation. It is for this reason that the Doritos Super Bowl commercial contest more closely mirrored “American Idol” than a karaoke contest. Raise your hand if you think “American Idol” is user-generated content, or the contestants are your everyday kids (never mind -- I can’t see you anyway). “American Idol” is a talent search, judged by the people the talent is supposed to affect -- a better comparison for distributed creative development.
It’s easy to see why agencies not looking for the recognition, which would be most established agencies, could not justify the expense of participating in the contest against its expected financial outcome. But what about when marketers increasingly turn to distributed creative development? There are a number of market effects that will have to play out. Doritos had the market to itself in many ways for this run. All of the press clips that Doritos showed (read: free promotion of its contest and its spot) won’t occur the sixth and seventh time “users” get their ad distributed on a major platform. Also, the more brands that test the market for distributed creative development, the greater the demand for amateurs’ and aspiring professionals’ time. This will drive up the cost of attracting the critical mass of submissions (the key to reducing the risk of distributed creative development). Will the cost get high enough that we will see smaller interactive and independent agencies participating in these open calls? Can you create an efficient market for distributed creative development (Google, are you listening)?
As the market determines a price, and all hidden costs and risks are assessed for distributed creative development, traditional full-service agencies will be forced to compete against the cost of initiating, managing and compensating a successful distributed creative campaign. Traditional agencies will also have to match the success rate of distributed creative development.
Successful agencies will adapt to be able to participate in a market with elements of distributed creative development. This will take three forms: 1) Facilitating or providing complementary services; 2) leveraging expertise and adapting organization to actually participate efficiently in the market of open calls for creative; and 3) utilizing advances in technology to consistently outperform cost and effectiveness measurements of the distributed creative market (and being able to prove it). Don’t say this isn’t possible; look at the funds that consistently outperform financial markets. So who is Madison Avenue’s Goldman Sachs?
RSS FEEDS
I kid. But this topic hits close to home, and it was certainly something I found compelling at OMMA. I even asked a couple of the creatives from the creative panel if they were concerned that creating a bunch of user generated campaigns was in effect creating a proving ground for their competition. They didn't say "yes" of course, but there was a bit of fear in their eyes.
And there should be, at least for the next three years. Creative is only as good as the idea behind it, and opening up the floodgates to user generated content certainly increases the number of ideas to pick from. There's usually a few golden needles in that haystack. The problem isn't that this "distributed creative" is going to provide serious competition in quality to professional creative -- generally people go into a business because that's what they are really really good at -- but it is a threat less in the competition of quality and more in the competition of buzz. Marketers seem to have a magical quality of getting fooled by their own marketing. So when the buzz is about user generated, those writing the checks are going to make them out to "the public" rather than "the pros."
Here's the rub -- you open those floodgates in pretty much any sort of position, and that initial burst of water is going to pack quite a punch. Let's say you promote a product offering "users" the chance to make the most innovative media plan -- should planners be worried? If the submissions have enough critical mass, certainly.
But as you say, once those initial waters pass, you've got a pretty weak, ebbing flow.
Also, I think the Doritos campaign fell far short of what a user generated ad campaign can actually do. I'd be interested in your thoughts on the post I wrote after seeing the Spot Runner presentation and considering the Doritos presentation the day earlier: Pointilism with Spot Runner
This pool of up and coming filmmakers/story-tellers will generate opportunities for new forms of short-form content that are brand integration friendly and thus more likely to appeal to advertisers. That said user generated content relating to brands will evolve and grow as different categories / brands test its effectiveness either driven by agencies or from the brands themselves. New brands and the more heavily promotional oriented brands I think will adopt more quickly.
Mitch www.grupoentrada.com
This is the most lucid dissertation on the topic of user-generated advertising that I have seen in quite a while. Often, this subject has been addressed with too much hypersensitivity (by agencies) or overeagerness (by new media pundits).
I think that contests, themselves, are simply a current cultural fad. There have always been avenues for new blood to reach the advertising world; ad-creation contests are just one more way. Historically, contests as advertising gimmicks have drifted into and out of popularity, so it's not surprising that they have popped up in recent years.
Let me get old school, for a moment. Personally, I'm not keen on the nomenclature "user-generated content." "User" has always felt pejorative, due to its transition in the '90s from its exclusive reference to drug consumption to its current reference to persons operating computers. "Generated" reduces the soul wringing creative process to a mechanical one, while the ugly word "content" seems to indicate that only the vessel is permanent, while the items inside are completely interchangeable and therefore of little merit. It's like saying to the public, "media junkies, churn out some crap that we can dump onto the airwaves."
The new term, "distributed creative development" is much more accurate, but gives me heartburn. It sounds just like the newspeak one hears at Silicon Valley companies who don't want to tell employees that their personal control over a job task is going to be interfered with by management. In other words, let's not rely on the genius of a gifted individual, when we can satisfy egos by making everyone feel they had a hand in the project, even to the detriment of the final results.
How about this: "wannabe influenced messages." This way, we make a direct call to those wishing to enter advertising, and we back off from the idea that soccer moms and pre-teens will lead us to the advertising promised land.
I regret to say that perhaps whatever amateurs and hopefuls come up with really is just interchangeable content. Nevertheless, let's not imagine that it's the new way of the media world, or "here to stay." Contest burnout may be just around the corner. I wouldn't invest in it too heavily, simply because it's an artifice, not an actual business process applicable to all products.
As for whether the "We are not evil" folks will save advertising from the jaws of obsolescence, I say fat chance. I've talked to those folks. Not much actual thinking going on.
I agree with you that it's the creative and mechanisms of delivery that are changing... giving new advertising & infotainment rock stars a chance to shine.
What media companies will start doing is poaching programmers from web design companies.