The Rise of User-Created Ads
by Scott Hauman, Director of Planning

This year’s Super Bowl generated the usual pre- and post-game buzz about the players, coaches, parties, half-time entertainment, and ads. But the most interesting buzz centered around the use of consumer-generated advertising on, arguably, marketing’s grandest stage.

The CBS telecast included four consumer-generated spots, all conceived by amateurs. The companies who ran them were Chevrolet, Doritos and the National Football League. To view these spots, go to www.ifilm.com/superbowl.

Are we witnessing a historic shift in ad production, from the Madison Avenue professional to the couch potato with a digital video camera? Media experts say they expect to see more such spots in the future, and not just for big events like the Super Bowl.

The real payoff for these adventurous companies is not the creative end product, but rather the terrific PR buildup. The big win for the three brands was the engagement they achieved with their consumers for months prior to February 4th.

What's less clear is what long-term effect this round of Super Bowl ads will have on the entire creative process in advertising. Will it mean looser creative controls and more informal advertising?

One would certainly think so, at least to some small degree. Thanks to YouTube and other community-building sites, user-generated content on the web has already opened up the talent pool for other media.

Whatever doubts Madison Avenue may have had about the effectiveness of user-generated ads largely melted away in the post-game assessments.

There are many advantages to user-generated ads, #1 among them being cost. The typical Super Bowl spot may take a creative team up to a year to complete, while user-generated spots are cheap and time-effective. It took only a few months to produce the NFL spot.

Doritos and the NFL boosted their ROI by allowing internet users to vote on the ad before it aired. That guaranteed that some viewers were making an emotional connection with the material and becoming actively invested in the brand.

While it opens the advertising process up a bit to consumer involvement, my guess is that this trend won’t be an overnight revolution.

There is some danger lurking behind this consumer-generated strategy which flies in the face of developing, managing, and leveraging a brand as the valuable strategic asset it is. If homemade ads constitute part of a sustained, concerted effort to turn over the reins of brand communication to consumers, then there is certainly cause for concern. This is not to say that consumer-generated ads should play no part in the brand communications mix. Such ads simply should not form the center of an entire brand campaign, because they are likely to miss the opportunity to demonstrate brand leadership; that is, to express the unique and compelling brand point of view that transcends the product or service being sold.

Everyone singles out a few ads as being the most disruptive, and therefore the most successful, ads that represent the thought leadership of the brand. Think of Apple’s 1984 commercial, or Nike’s original Just Do It campaign. My feeling is that no consumer, no matter how talented or cool or brand- fanatical, could have conceived and produced those outstanding examples of compelling advertising.

Join the debate:  please share your comments and reactions with scott@qltd.com.