I spoke with reporter Mary Schneidau of the Atlanta Journal Constitution for her story today on consumer-generated advertisements, particularly the video sort. She noted that:
For companies and organizations, such ads have the dual benefit of being both relatively cheap and cutting-edge.
I have no doubt consumers, with few corporate strings attached, do have huge potential to create cutting-edge material. But classifying consumer-generated ads as cheap versus professionally-created ads is a trivial and misguided comparison. I would suggest that the real cost of consumer-created ads has little to do with production cost and everything to do with creating a meaningful product, service, customer devotion and amazing brand experience. That’s potentially more costly than professional advertising, but, no doubt, should be higher priority than any advertising.
And my two cents to the story:
"What’s going on right now really represents a fundamental shift in media and marketing," said Max Kalehoff, the vice president of marketing for Nielsen Buzzmetrics, which tracks consumer-generated content online.
Consumer-generated advertising isn’t limited to online videos, Kalehoff said. It also includes brand promotion on blogs and photo-sharing sites. The cable network Current TV was created to host consumer-generated content, including advertising.