Outsource Your Marketing Department With Consumer-Generated Advertising

from the got-buzzword? dept

The advertising world is the latest industry wanting to cash in on user-generated content. Several companies have invited users to create their own versions of popular ads, like Mastercard's "Priceless" campaign. Cheap production costs are even enabling users to shoot and produce their own TV spots, with prizes and exposure for top entrants. So far companies that have ventured into this have received a good amount of publicity for their efforts, but it's likely that subsequent efforts won't produce the same bang for the buck. Users are likely to tire of constant pitches to design their own ads, or vote on which user-created ad will appear in the next issue of Maxim. Designers, too, will want more than just publicity or a token prize for winning a contest. It's good that companies are learning to engage more with their customers, but this is just a variation on the current advertising model, whereby branding and hype are crudely used to promote a product. It may be useful, but it's not exactly a revolution.