• by September 21, 2007

[Christian Anthony's] comments on the role of agencies in UGC/Branding initiatives are dead-on. We have done a bunch of these campaigns for folks like UPS, Denon, Boston Acoustics, Vespa and Chevy, and the one truism is that agency engagement is critical to campaign success. Agency engagement touches areas like creating good seeded content so initial visitors aren't met with an empty site. It requires well-thought-out creative that reconciles what engages consumers to create and submit content, with the underlying branding and marketing goals of the campaigns.

Further, agencies drive a holistic approach to ad buys and marketing efforts, building awareness of and driving traffic to the UGC campaign microsite, all the while cultivating viral spread offsite. Netting it out, UGC campaigns are the quintessential example of managed chaos -- an area where agencies excel.