Advertisers challenged by consumer-created content

on The Editors Weblog
by Maddie Hanna, June 26, 2006

Consumer-created content has simultaneously drummed up tremendous support from Internet users and provoked anxiety among traditional forms of media struggling to adapt to the online grassroots movement. But it’s also worrying the media’s source of revenue: advertisers.

At the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, the industry’s biggest advertisers are coming to terms with the fact that the brand control they once took for granted was a luxury — a luxury since lost in the emerging online world.

One question that keeps resurfacing is how to deal with consumers introducing brands into their own online content. Without knowing for sure how products are being used in this content, how can a company market its brand effectively?

Chris Dobson, vice president of international ad sales for Microsoft Corp.’s online business group: “The power of the consumer being in control is scary if you come from a traditional marketing world … There is a risk for brands. There is nowhere to hide online now.”

Mark Tutssel, chief creative officer for Leo Burnett: “Marketers must learn to let go of the control they think they have over their brand … Once consumers have interacted with brands they will not go back to being shouted at marketers.”

At the festival, the Leo Burnett agency described YouTube.com as “bigger than MTV for advertisers” — just one example of the broadening scope of popular, user-produced Web sites pressuring advertisers to move their dollars online.

Categories

• UGC
• Advertising