CGC for CGC

Produced by: Skye7

My very own consumer-generated content for a paper about consumers as elements of an ad agency: a.k.a CGC

ADV391K : Spring 2007

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Posted Mar 7 2007 5:31 PM

Regardless of risk encircling a strategy formulated with consumers heavily involved, marketers do hire them. But, some consumers have said no to their boundaries and restrictions, and have gone out on their own to attack or embrace a brand. These entrepreneurs, and their “one-man-show,” have created their own agency, controlling what, where, and how the ad will be viewed. “They’re picking and choosing the things they want to invite into their lives” (Petrecca).

An example of this is a contest sponsored by the enormously popular Worth1000.com, one of PC Magazine’s 2004 top 100 websites. It’s a graphic design website, in which consumers use their skills in Photoshop to create unnatural images (Amazon.com). In 2005, the site’s creator, Avi Muchnick, called upon these creatives to conjure the future image of advertising by altering current ads or putting brand names in unlikely places (Tessa). The resulting images from contests such as these, have been showcased on USA Today, CNN, and Good Morning America (Amazon.com).

Some gifted graphic designers have even managed to convince the media to purchase their material. In fact, recently, an every-day man placed himself in a Gucci perfume ad, where it ran double-paged in a Swiss magazine. The money was already given to him before Gucci could call in the mistake (Associated Press).

I feel as though, if a person can pass an ad as a multi-million dollar Madison Avenue production, than it shows how much the advertisers themselves need to step up their creative work in the future. By challenging the system, you only make it reevaluate itself, resulting in a more knowledgeable stronger industry with better, engaging advertising. I think we will see a drastic increase in the effort of strategy from all agencies, large and small.

It is not only in magazines that consumer’s work is seen. Of course, it is present in the enormously successful site, YouTube.com. “They’re the darling of the business” (Kincaid). Although YouTube.com has recently in reality become more of a consumer-distributed rather than consumer-generated-content space (Vorhaus), Steve Rosemblum attributes the shift in control to the onslaught of such viral video sites as a core reason behind the beginnings of this phenomenon. At its conception, it gave already producing consumer-creatives an outlet for their own advertisements, regardless of whether or not they were approved by the brand itself (Vagnoni).

I think it’s impossible to re-relinquish control back from the consumer. Sooner or later they are going to realize that the advertisers need them to survive. And they are going to start asking for bigger payment than notoriety and small sums of cash (Kincaid). We are going to have to integrate them into the agency dynamic. We’ll have to treat them as if they were part-time employees, working just outside the walls of the building. Close enough to interact but distanced enough to sharpen the lines between industry and consumer.