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| Photo by Martin Deutsch |
A potentially useful series of thoughts:
- It used to be the case that we could assess our communications ideas by putting ourselves in the consumer’s shoes, and asking questions like “So what?”, and “What’s in it for me?” (credit to Ajaz)
- For some reason, the advent of UGC/Consumer Generated Content has made us all think that our audiences will be pleased to help us to sell our products. We seem to think that they will do this in return for exposure, and – perhaps – the opportunity to win a prize.
- Exposure is pretty much a commodity these days. Give me something more.
- A chance to win a prize? Are you looking for advocates, or just appealing to my greed? Or worse, are you appealing to compers?
- People want to promote themselves. They’re prepared to let us help them if they think our offer is good enough.
- Complete this tie-breaker in no more than fifteen words: “Consumers will help us sell or advertise our products because…”
- Hint: this site might help you.
Comments? Corrections?
If you change “because…” to “if…” would you get different answers? I think you would. Maybe “because” implies they like you already, “if” to me implies that you need to give them a reason. That’s the trickier one.
I think its problem when companies can get distracted by fortunate companies who have by design or luck been able to create brand evanglists and assume its easy.
Having said that I’ve written a blog post highlighting some of lucky companies, hopefully to act as inspiration http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk/2007/01/social-media-marketing-mascots-6.html#links
…because they like them?
No – that’s too simple. I’d like to propose that one of the necessary conditions is that the product in question has what we might call – pace Barthes – a ‘writerly’ quality. Recall that Barthes says that the aim of true literature is to create ‘writerly’ texts, in which “the reader [is] no longer a consumer but a producer of the text.” (‘S/Z’) So a writerly product or brand in this sense is one which has a certain unfinished quality which makes those that interact with it apt to feel that they are themselves contributing to the brand story.
A good example is, appositely enough, the Moleskine notebook. Modo used a few tidbits of Moleskine history (‘The legendary moleskine’) to seed and inspire an on-going mythmaking process that any moleskine user could contribute to. Take a look at http://www.moleskinerie.com/ to see where it’s headed.
A notebook is a notebook. But a Moleskine notebook is one which – look! – has been used by van Gough and Kafka and so on. It’s a notebook that you, too, can become famous for using – maybe, one day. And the Moleskine will become more famous for your having used it. Tell us about it.
So, there it is: give me a writerly product, and I’ll help you with your marketing.
See Ashley’s interesting list of winners and losers at e-Consultancy. Ignore the fairly off-topic follow-ups.
Consumers will help us sell or advertise our products if it adds value to their lives. Different opportunities to add value exist for different brands, as not all brands are created equal.
For example, Bathing Ape could run a UGC contest asking it’s constituency to design t-shirts for it, with the prize simply being having your design run. The value is having your creation being aligned with a trendy brand, and giving you automatic cool by association cred. This would make you feel pretty good, and surely earns some nice bragging rights. You also get the bonus of something tasty to put in your portfolio if you have professional design ambitions.
Apple could run UGC contests out its ears, simply because of the massive affinity for the brand. People do it anyways, without Apple even promoting it. I imagine the reason people create this content is because for them it is about proclaiming their identity and worldview via their affiliation with Apple. Strange, but true. And that’s the value to them, when you see the brand as a reflection of your worldview, creating something about the brand is simply about expressing your own self, which is a powerful impulse.
For a brand like Nike, the UGC proposition could be most amazing amateur sports videos, with the prize legitimately being about promotion. Potentially millions of people get to see your amazing moment, whether it’s an improbable hole in one, an unbelievable hoops shot, a football goal from across the pitch, etc. Millions of people will see your moment of brilliance, and probably as importantly, all of your mates as well.
For Doritos, who just ran their Superbowl UGC competition, the value was also about exposure, but also about a form of thrill. The thrill comes from having your own creation broadcast in front of many millions of people and become the first UGC ad broadcast amongst the Superbowl ads, a milestone of sorts. The exposure comes from the fact that the young winners were sitting up a creative video production company, and what an unbeatable way to launch their company.
So I think you do need to give people a reason to contribute, and find a way to add value to their lives. And it will be different for every brand. If your brand has something about it already that people care about or want to align theselves with regardless, your job is signficantly easier. If people don’t already feel strongly about your brand, it’s tougher…you either need a clever promotion that offers value through real humour or novelty, or value through real exposure, or financial or major prize-based compensation. And Mat I think you’re spot on about the risk of appealing to greed – that the value you get by simply appealing to greed is going to be much less effective and drive much less value back to the brand than if you find a way to connect with your audience on an emotional level.