Content marketing: Brands Embrace User Images and Video

Table of Contents

  1. Summary
  2. Introduction
  3. The new face of UGC marketing
  4. Advice for brands
  5. About David Deal

1. Summary

Apps and Consumer Insights Marketers Need to Know for Utilizing User-Generated Content

User-generated content has come a long way since 2002, when a science educator named Steve Spangler created an unexpected source of advertising for a soft drink and a chewy candy with his “Diet Coke and Mentos Eruption” experiment. Content has become mobile and more visually sophisticated thanks to an explosion of apps such as Vine and Snapchat, and the rise of the celebrity consumer.

Brands like All detergent are taking advantage of innovative tools like video platform Magisto to launch campaigns that rely on consumer-generated visual storytelling. This research note examines the new face of user-generated content and offers tips for brands that wish to collaborate with consumers.

Key findings include:

  • Marketers recognize the value of authentic consumer voices, especially with millennial audiences.
  • New photo and UGV apps provide three key features: easy authoring in support of storytelling, instant gratification, and mobile creation and access. Agencies and platforms make it easy to match up with consumer celebrities – more co-branding than crowdsourcing – and brands themselves are developing visual storytelling expertise.
  • To use this emerging medium effectively, brands must do their audience homework, vet their concepts, and understand their own tolerance for risk.

 

Thumbnail image courtesy: iStock/Thinkstock

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