Conn Fishburn on user-generated content
with
Yahoo
Conn Fishburn, director of social media strategy for Yahoo, says that the rise of user-generated content requires advertisers learn "ways to not market to the user, but rather to communicate with them."
Transcript: Conn Fishburn on user-generated content
I think the over-hype of user generated content is kind of like over-froth, but also well deserved, so it's kind of something that's been around for a really long time. And I think that acquisitions like YouTube and the money that was spent on that really kind of drive that froth around the hype rather than actually giving any substance to what it actually means for the user to generate content or to participate in marketing campaigns. And I also think that the drive towards monetization is a tricky one because you're thinking about, a lot of times from advertisers or publishers' point of view, how to extract value from users when in reality it should be about adding value to the user experience, especially in networks.
So with Nikon, we actually called the Nikon stunning gallery which is an extension of their existing campaign, where users submit photos, their most stunning photos. We had a tremendous amount of photos submitted because it tapped into that natural truth about the Flickr community is that they like for their photos to be noticed and seen by other people.
We actually said send us your best photographs, and then they gave 20 of the top photographers who submitted photographs a new camera they were promoting, and then had them go out and shoot other photographs, which became offline advertising campaigns which ran in National Geographic and Time. So that's a nice extension of user generated content to promote your brand in a very natural way. It's not a promotion per se.
Agencies are more important than ever. I think that their roles are changing pretty drastically. And I think that, with the Doritos example of the Super Bowl spots we had some great user generated commercials. But that was really not a big deal. That was nothing in it of itself without actually playing them on the Super Bowl. So media agency has a big role in negotiating that deal and pulling that off. The fact that it was an integrated media program actually is what gave value to the user generated portion of it. But I think agencies have to learn a whole set of new tricks, a whole set of ways to not market to the user, but rather to communicate with them and have them participate in the marketing of the brand in a much more visible way than it's ever been before. I think that user generated content in one form or another had been around for a very long time. People have been talking about brands on their own for a very long time and recommending them to friends. I think for an agency to understand it, they have to be respectful of existing behavior but also figure out how to participate with the people. I think that's a new trick for advertising agencies. I think the smarter ones will understand that the value that can come from people talking about brands as opposed to marketers talking about brands.
I do think that there' s a shelf life for the fad of having users create kind of the head advertising content. I think they're always going to be in the tail or the middle of that, but I do think that user participation won't go away. And I think that it'll just become a more integral part of the campaign. So I really look at this as less of a revolution in users generating content and more of a revolution of marketers actually working with people to create lasting brand campaigns.
