User Generated Content -the good, the bad, and the suggestions

In this post, I aim to state reasons as to why User-generated content impacts consumer marketing. A lot of people (whether they know it or not) are influenced by UGC and subsequently makes an impact on what they purchase, therefore looking at UGC campaigns that have worked effectively, and not so effectively can help businesses in the future.

User-generated content (UGC) is the words and photos that unpaid contributors create and provide to publications, particularly Web properties (Techtarget, 2014) 

UGC when done correctly could help customer retention and even gain more customers. I found an interesting article that came up with a couple of UGC campaigns carried out by some big name companies.

For example, In 2013, Estee Lauder the beauty company started a campaign called Estée Lauder – Breast Cancer Action. All other Breast cancer campaigns emphasized on the word 'AWARENESS' rather than 'ACTION'. Estee Lauder wanting women to actually do something about breast cancer. The difference with this campaign is that the company was encouraging women to actually GO out and book mammograms and eat healthy foods etc.

 The theme of the campaign was "Stronger Together" and encouraged women to create a ‘Circle of Strength, women put pictures on Instagram and tweeted about the whole experience (Postano, 2014).

On the other hand, there are some UGC campaigns that fail epically. For example in January 2012, Mcdonalds started a promotional campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #McDstories and #Meetthefarmers. It was done so people could share their experiences with the brand and to shed light to the hard workers behind the scenes of the McDonalds proccess. However, the campaign had to be put to an end by Social Media Rick Wion because of all the negative tweets they recieved.

Here are a few,

@Muzzafuzza: I haven't been to McDonalds in years, because I'd rather eat my own diarrhea.
@None_0ther: Dude said he found a roach on his sandwich
@hypekills1226: Doing it in the parking lot of mcdonalds
@SkipSullivan: One time I walked into McDonalds and I could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up.

After all the bad tweets came in, Rick Wion thought it best to stop the campaign. This is an example of how consumers can really affect the perception of a brand. (Christodoulides, Jevons, Bonhomme & 2012) support this notion by stating brands that formerly were tightly controlled by their managers increasingly are being shaped by their consumer markets also because of this reason it is, therefore, important for managers to understand the drivers of consumer online content creation and eventually how it impacts your brand (Berton, Pitt & Campbell, 2008).

References

BERtHon, p., R. L. pitt, and C. CampBELL. “AdLb: When Customers Create the Ad.” California Management Review 50, 4 (2008): 6–30

 

Christodoulides, G, Jevons, C, & Bonhomme, J 2012, 'Memo to Marketers: Quantitative Evidence for Change. How User-Generated Content Really Affects Brands', Journal Of Advertising Research, 52, 1, pp. 53-64, 

IB TIMES (2014) "McDonald’s #McDStories Twitter Campaign is an Epic Fail, Best (and Worst) Tweets" [Online] <http://www.ibtimes.com/mcdonalds-mcdstories-twitter-campaign-epic-fail-best-worst-tweets-399910> Accessed June 4th 2014

 

Postano (2014) "10 Great Examples of User Generated Content Campaigns" [Online] <http://www.postano.com/blog/10-great-examples-of-user-generated-content-campaigns> Accessed June 4th 2014

Techtarget (2014) "User Generated Content (UGC)" [Online] <http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/user-generated-content-UGC> Accessed June 4th 2014