Mr M. wrote, “As the means to enter the market become cheaper and cheaper and brands, thanks to social media etc., become more comfortable with conversations occuring about them in the Social Web, what kind of impact do you think user generated advertising (and let’s start in this case with traditional above the line “commercials”) is going to play?”

User generated advertising is a beast to deal with, from an agency’s perspective. Sometimes it can help a brand gain a wonderful reputation, and sometimes it can really drag their brand’s name down into the mud. Should they play dirty? How do you deal with UGA? Do you ignore, address or attempt to control it? And at what point will consumers stop accepting your hard and fast rules about brand’s goodwill and start rejecting your attempts at engaging them into conversation? It’s a fickle and dangerous game (do you like all my analogies? I thought of them myself. I’m THAT good.). But I think it can definitely be done right, given the right direction, voice and method. However, just like traditional advertising, sometimes you may only understand why 50% of it worked.

Very few agencies, I think, know how to control this beast. Traditional agencies have had a long history of being able to put THE ONE message out there that the have decided is THE ONE. The key components of carefully selected words, phrasing and tone that will describe the product or service in the exact right light to appeal to its intended target market.

And now suddenly, consumers are coming along and saying, “Hey! I don’t like this. This isn’t true at all!” and decide, rather than keep these thoughts to themselves, that they will create content to share with their friends, families and unknowns. Everyone is a critic.

The impact is simple: the messaging will get confusing, fuzzy and filled with white noise. Take for example, the recent JC Penny ad debacle. Not exactly the best example (considering it’s not UGA) but that’s what I’m using (and it’s my blog so whatever). Now, Saatchi & Saatchi thought they’d go ahead and use a previous client to make a statement at the Cannes without JC Penny’s approval. An ad – whether great or bad (to be debated another time) – showed a real brand, with real logos and CERTAINLY real looking to any unsuspecting consumer promoted something that JC Penny was shocked(!) and appalled(!) to be associated with: teen sex.

What does this mean for JC Penny and the average consumer? Anyone who saw this on YouTube, for example, might mistake it for the Real Deal(tm). Now, the original ad has been taken down, but this one, is the same ad with some change at the end mocking the Republican party. The first comment you see underneath the video?

joshw220 (1 week ago)
This is a JC penny commercial and the end was changed. At the end it showed the JC penny logo, not the republican party stuff.

The video uploader has a another fake JC Penny ads with different twists uploaded – and joshw220 has made it sure that he also wrote on the other video that, NO! This was for JC Penny and it’s been changed! Innocent user blindly believing because the ad looks real, the music sounds real and that the company’s logo is on it, it must be real.

What does this mean for agencies? It means that with potential white noise, multiple conversations and no ability to ensure consumers can disconcern from real ads and fake ads, that they simply will lose control of the conversation.

Which, really, is probably their worst fear. How do you go back to a client and say, “Er… sorry? It just kind of slipped out of our hands?” No client, no agency wants that, and I think to a certain degree, no consumer wants that. Yes, they want to be able to express their thoughts freely on the web, but who wants to sit there and have to decide whether or not an ad they just saw is actually ligitimately from the company? That’s way too much effort for the average consumer to put into a brand. Instead they will ignore and forget about it and turn to something else shiny and pretty.

And so, I think, really, in the en– oh! a penny!

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