The Super Bowl is the media big leagues. In some households it is the commercials that reign supreme and are often re-wound, re-watched and become the "water cooler" topic the following day. The ability to extend this experience and -- more importantly -- increase the engagement level with a customer is a marketer's dream.
To bring that dream to life, marketers like Alka-Seltzer, Frito-Lay and Chevrolet are attempting a reverse approach: asking consumers to create the Super Bowl ads. This is user-generated content (UCG) advertising.
Benefits and risks
As described in a recent article in the USA Today, consumers have been invited to submit their ad ideas. Winning ideas will be broadcast to millions on one of the most highly anticipated TV days in the country.
What's the benefit for the brands? UGC can help deliver this type of brand engagement in a measurable manner, which is invaluable for marketers to understand how their brands and/or messages are perceived.
However, there is a risk. Marketers need to be prepared to deal with the possibility of Super Bowl-level of negative feedback. For these advertisers, the risk resides in the perceived selection process. Every submission regardless of whether it is shown may end up posted somewhere. This leads to the possibility that in an effort to engage their consumers, advertisers galvanize those who had something other than the company line to promote
Marketers have a choice moving forward in this new consumer-controlled environment. They can choose to fight the crowd, ignore the crowd or engage in a dialog with the crowd. With Super Bowl ads that allow direct user interaction, marketers are choosing arguably the largest media event possible to invite the consumer to join a conversation.
While there may be some challenges to deal with, such as the instance we saw with Chevy Tahoe, the upside is the opportunity to connect with the advocates and detractors of your brand.
Lessons in engagement: Diet Coke and Mentos
With broadband penetration, open source code and ease of self-publishing, much of the page growth will be stimulated by user-generated content. Looking back, an example of how quickly and easily brands can get swept up in the user-generated whirlwind was the Diet Coke and Mentos phenomena.
A choreographed video created by EepyBird of dancing fountains of Diet Coke (think the Bellagio Hotel fountains in Las Vegas) combined with Mentos candy created a chemical reaction, which resulted in a lot of buzz. Mentos has done a terrific job of capitalizing on the momentum created by the cult following, including featuring the EepyBird video on their site, whereas Diet Coke let the video run its course.
Weeks after the video posted, it was picked up on YouTube, which was then picked up by mainstream media and tested by reporters at CNN and NPR. It truly hit the mass media when David Letterman and the "Today Show" featured the video's producers on their shows. Even now a query of "Diet Coke and Mentos" delivers more than 3,000 postings on YouTube and 2.2 million search results on Google.
Why is this important? It demonstrates the power of the web and ultimately how consumers can drive an otherwise random occurrence to top-of-mind status. The ripples caused by a single person's experience can travel to many more people much faster than ever before. It demonstrates what is news-worthy or trendy can now be controlled by the masses.
But what does this mean for marketers?
If you type a brand or marketer's name into YouTube, you will often find their commercials posted along with user-generated commercials or spoofs. That is a phenomenal level of engagement. It makes a lot of sense for marketers to start leveraging it.
The web has empowered and enabled consumers to share their opinions, areas of expertise and passions with others by leveraging the sight, sound, motion and most importantly two-way environment. The "socialness" of the web is easily accessible now as suggested by the explosion of blogging and other social networking platforms, such as MySpace. They are the new resources of information and for publishers represent the next generation of web technologies that can be monetized.
For marketers, the sites provide a new opportunity to engage with their customers and prospects.
As with all new forms or vehicles of advertising, it is the classic risk versus reward scenario that have some marketers lining up to test UGC while others -- who are less risk tolerant -- take a wait and see approach.
The risks are real for marketers and unless you are ready to engage in a dialogue and are prepared to hear the good, bad and ugly parts of what people think about your brand, messaging, et cetera, using UGC as part of your advertising strategy may be premature.
Be prepared: Someone may have something negative to say; therefore the adage "you can't please everyone" applies here. Everything is fair game once you enter the UGC environment-- everyone has a voice, and everyone is a critic.
Another way of saying this is that not everyone can be a pioneer, and that's OK.
Sarah K. Baehr is vice president, media, for Avenue A | Razorfish. Read full bio.
