I have talked a lot about UGC/word-of-mouth marketing campaigns powered by vSocial's Campaign Solutions hosted offering.
Well, another one just went live. It is called the Go Green Vespa Video Challenge, and the focus of the campaign is on Vespanomics; namely, how Vespa owners do their part for a greener planet Earth.
Great interplay of consumer engagement and branding strategy, which brings me to an interesting article that I read today on the role of interactive agencies in UGC/branding initiatives.
The entry point into the article is a fundamental question of whether the role of agencies gets neutralized as more and more marketing/advertising is consumer participatory and user-generated (versus professionally produced). The author wonders aloud if brands ultimately build their own bridges to consumers versus working through agencies.
My experience suggests that agencies are one of the critical gates to successful campaigns in this arena. Why? Agencies drive the creation of good seeded content so that initial visitors aren’t met with an empty site.
They drive the creative that reconciles what engages consumers to create and submit content with the underlying branding and marketing goals of the campaigns.
Further, agencies craft the holistic approach to ad buys and marketing efforts that build awareness of and drive traffic to the UGC campaign microsite, all the while cultivating viral spread offsite.
UGC campaigns are the quintessential example of managed chaos. Too much of one without the other is a recipe for failure, and it is specifically this type of orchestration where agencies excel.
