Consumer generated advertising (CGA) is creating a stir among marketers and in the marketing media. Experiments abound, ranging from the high profile effort for Doritos on the Super Bowl, to obscure design campaigns on brand websites.
Interest in this new advertising model has been stimulated by concerns over two increasingly visible weaknesses of the traditional advertising model: a lack of authenticity in communications and diminishing creative output. Consumers are becoming immune to the slick and formulaic messaging styles of the past, and remain indifferent to messages that rarely reach even a minimum threshold of creativity.
CGA provides, by definition, a true consumer voice. It also provides a potential creative windfall for marketers. Aren’t there creative minds outside Madison Avenue, in the far reaches of America, in Dubuque and Las Cruces, in Toledo and Billings? Doesn’t CGA offer a way to tap into this bigger pool and, indeed, to do this more cost effectively than by paying large sums to the black shirts in traditional agencies?
As with any new model that challenges convention, CGA does create controversy. A recent article in the New York Times, “The High Price of Creating Free Ads”, presents a cautionary tale. Focusing primarily on the recent H.J. Heinz campaign, which solicited homemade ads from consumers via YouTube, the article highlights some potential pitfalls in the model. Still, the article is less an indictment of CGA than a story about what can go wrong. Indeed, at XLNTads we agree with much of what the article says. A lot can go wrong. Fortunately, the XLNTads model offers a solution to all of the potential pitfalls noted in the article.
Essentially, the Times’ article offers 3 areas for concern: low quality, process complexity and cost.
1) Low Quality Consumer Submissions
The article emphasizes that many of the entries to the Heinz competition were “mediocre, if not downright bad.” Why is that so surprising? Advertising isn’t easy, even for established creative agencies. Does the agency establishment forget that they themselves may go through hundreds of bad ideas, spending considerable sums “consumer testing” many of them, before finding the occasionally great idea? CGA merely goes through this process in an open and public way.
The key for brand marketers is to reach the talent that’s out there, waiting to be discovered and keen to demonstrate what they can do. A cattle call on YouTube is not the solution. Brands need to target that talent, and XLNTads provides a way to do that. No one can guarantee a great ad, not even the big ad agencies, but we can guarantee more qualified submissions by a cohort of videographers than any other site.
2) Process Complexity
The article points out that running a CGA campaign can be messy. It involves designing and managing a campaign. It involves addressing legal issues, e.g., determining rights to music in submitted ads. It involves the time consuming activity of screening ads.
None of this should come as a surprise. Many of these things have to be done for any ad campaign. What is different with CGA is that companies and agencies have no established process for doing it. So engaging in CGA becomes disruptive. XLNTads has developed a system to make the process easy for brand marketers. We have the platform; we screen the ads; we even have music pre-approved and cleared. We offer a virtually turnkey solution.
3) Cost
The primary criticism of CGA is embodied in the Times’ article’s title: “high cost”. Creating the campaign, promoting it, vetting the ads, etc., all takes people and money. Advertising spending to promote some campaigns has run into the millions.
There are two points to keep in mind here. First, much of the cost is discretionary. CGA campaigns don’t have to be backed up by millions in TV spending. Using XLNTads, for example, a company could run an entire campaign, including moderate promotion spending, for $200-300 thousand. Second, the real issue is value for money. Doritos is cited in the article as spending “$1.3 million in advertising in October”. What isn’t cited is their marketing director’s revelation that the campaign generated the equivalent of $36 million in paid media. Real bang for the buck.
The article emphasizes that while “it sounds so easy … (to) sit back while average Americans do the creative work”, it’s not. We agree. But XLNTads has created a model that addresses all the problems cited. We offer an easy, lost cost way to explore CGA. And we can work with you to design a campaign that fits your needs and exceeds your ambitions.
