Fascinating story in today's NYT that will have creative execs at ad agencies sleeping a bit better at night. The story examines user generated ads via the lens of a Heinz campaign under way, and decides maybe the costs and quality received don't quite provide the value expected. Shock. Even considering the self interest of the ad agencies here, this is the money quote:
Scott Goodson, chief executive of StrawberryFrog, an advertising agency based in New York, said the shortcomings of contest entries — not just those for Heinz — refuted predictions that user-generated content might siphon work away from agencies. “This Heinz campaign, much like the same ones done by Doritos, Converse and Dodge, only goes to show how hard it is to do great advertising,” he said.
As I've noted before, the barrier of entry to creating interesting visual campaigns has fallen dramatically. Anyone with camera and a PC can now create something that plausibly looks like an ad, in the same way that the the advent of desktop publishing let people create newsletters, or dreamweaver let people create web pages. But it turns out that because the tools are there is not sufficient - there has to be talent and understanding as well. The reason the impact of some of the previous campaigns were seen as successful had less to do with the ads themselves, and more to do with the resulting PR that happened around them -- it was a hook to tell the brand story via press, in the same way that campaigns in Second Life were probably a wash from a marketing standpoint but got big benefits because of the buzz -- "wow! an island in second life" even if the sum total of visitors to that island was in the double digits. The brand got a pop in the resulting coverage in blogs and the mainstream media, therefore the investment was a success. And thus, the power of PR as part of the marketing mix.
The truth is the lower cost of entry WILL help drive more creativity, because in the millions of people who are playing with the new medium there are sure to be some gems. They'll be discovered now, much more rapidly than previously.
As a postscript, how happy is Heinz to have a front page business section, four color, four column picture of a not super attractive guy brushing his teeth, washing his face and shaving with their product? Not all that happy, I'm sure.
Testament to the danger of "giving up control of your brand."