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February 09, 2007
The "user-generated" shooting star
Thanks to the Super Bowl, "user-generated" has gone supernova.
Whether it's media titan Barry Diller dismissing the trend yet again at a media conference this week (like he did last year) or Adweek dissecting it like Fermi scientists, user-generated marketing is the talk of the town.
Jon Fine of Businessweek is talking about it, too, going so far as to air his distaste for the common nomenclature:
Instead of the excruciating "consumer-generated advertising" and "consumer-generated marketing," I will use "citizen advertising" and "citizen marketing."
Extra gold stars for Jon on his terminological conversion. But he thinks the hype has turned the principles fueling citizen marketing, like community and authenticity, into ready-made cliches. His point (I think) is that an overheated Madison Avenue has corrupted what was authentic (like authenticity) into a faddish spin on the industry's kamikaze mission to make advertising ubiquity the new exclusivity. Traditional media has been especially treacly this year in its zeal to discuss, rate and vote on meaningless Super Bowl ads, and that's undoubtedly been fueled by the arrival of citizen advertising. If there's anything the traditional media love to talk about, it's media trends.
Brian Finkelstein, who's rather well-versed in the nature of citizen-created fandom, has a savvy viewpoint about this, arguing that the citizen "ads" for the Super Bowl were really the work of advertising and film making opportunists, not fans. He's right, of course -- that's what you get when your contest is designed for the common-denominator masses, not fans.
Madison Avenue is not in the business of creating fans -- it's in the business of widespread message distribution. But Mad Ave's influence and energy are fading not just because technology-assisted creativity is commoditizing their business, but because citizen-created content doesn't care about New York's infatuation with status and positioning debates. The power centers of influence are shifting to Google's server farms and thousands of online communities. The fans have co-opted Madison Avenue's work. Super Bowl ads are a circus freak show, and that's how about much influence they carry because the minutiae of product, brand and company discussions are being shaped in online forums, which Google follows like a studious court reporter. The points made in those forums are often carried forward to offline discussions, where they're added to the mixing bowl discussions of personal experiences of people and ultimately, their purchase decisions. There's your advertising.
Fans don't need Madison Avenue to feel validated, whether they love their washing machines or their soap.
It's not a category thing, it's a people thing.
Other blogs that reference The "user-generated" shooting star:
» User-Generated Advertising or 'citizen advertising' from College Marketing 4.0
The folks who wrote Citizen Marketing (which by the way, needs a better cover, we all judge books), blogged about the post Super Bowl Ad buzz, particularly around a few infamous 'contest ads,' namely the Doritos one (show below), and [Read More]
» AdHack lives between people from AdHack
In the usergenerated shooting star author Ben McConnell discribes how and why Super Bowl ad contests missed the mark in connecting with the fans of the products: Madison Avenue is not in the business of creating fans it&a... [Read More]
Hey -- it's cheaper and simpler to run a contest than actually to engage with consumers. It lets advertisers and agencies feel like they are embracing the trend without really changing the way they work.
And when a critical mass of contests don't meet expectations, the inevitable reaction among the old guard will be "Our consumers don't want engagement. They just want to be told what to do."
Thank you for this post! I am so tired of the talk about Super Bowl ads (and I'm tired of my friends asking me to weigh in since I work in the industry). Super Bowl spots have devolved from advertising (which, as a promotions person, I don't much believe in) to a series of high-cost, low-return PR stunts. Everyone's trying to generate as much talk as possible, but the conversation isn't about the products or services and how they fit into our lives, it's about herding cats and getting deliveries in outer space.
I'm waiting for the report that shows every Super Bowl advertiser's Q1 '07 results. Will results be good, bad or ambivalent?
I agree wholeheartedly with your post and the comments. The icing on the cake is that the Doritos "consumer generated" spot was created by someone in advertising. Classic!
I think perhaps I have an approach that may be the subtext of your discussion above. AdHack: a DIY advertising community -- www.adhack.com.
We're working feverishly behind the covers getting the site ready and we'll be set to launch in a few months. Hopefully we can just let people 'engage' on their own terms, in their own time and with their own creativity.
Oh, and in the terminological discussion of nomenclature, I prefer simply 'participation' or, to get more reductive, 'co-production.'
