User-Generated Advertising is Stupid

PSFK: Advertising Doomed? Or Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs?

A quick opinion on user-generated advertising from the style watchers at PSFK. Definitely watch the video, it's annoyingly smug...but I do love John Batelle's comment that marketers are the ultimate laggards.

I agree with the PSFK assessment. User-generated content is interesting, it's broad and silly and infinitely creative. Asking users to generate your traditional ads is misguided. I recenly saw the Dove commercial where they present an ad made by a teenager in Sherman Oaks, the winner of their competition. I was looking forward to it, I thought it would be different. It wasn't. It was the same Dove ad I've seen a million times. They completely missed the opportunity. They didn't take the most interesting submitted videos and make something new out of them. they didn't ask participants interesting questions to increase the likelyhood that the submissions would be interesting. This is really disappointing when you go to the "Real Beauty" part of the Dove website where the ideas are new and the content is interesting are authentic.

Back to the Business 2.0 video...why can't advertisers understand that it's less the medium and more the message? Banners versus email versus a TV spot versus a billboard...urgh...anything that captures even the smallest bit of attention can effectively influence behavior. It just comes down to ROAS (return on ad spend). Spending a gazillion dollars having Ronald McDonald tell me the new hazelnut coffee is fabu is a mistake. spending far less money but lots of time gathering and sifting through boring Dove commercials is a costly mistake. The messages are wrong...and will become more and more wrong. The TV commercial isn't wrong, I watched them.

It's silly to even ask the question "is advertising dead?" it shows you don't get it. A better question would be "What are the most effective ways to advertise?". Then we'd hear an interesting discussion.

Contextual text ads!
Movie theater pre-roll!
Word of mouth at book clubs!
Customer events!

The Internet has changed everything and the REALITY is that all sorts of advertising will work. It takes more work on the content side and a lot more work on the tracking and reporting side but how else can you both advertize AND optimize. Am I wrong?