Created by People, Rather Than Brands
According to emarketer.com one of the major digital trends in 2021 is going to be: influencer and user-generated content. As they explained: brands have discovered in the past year that not-so-slick work, so they’ll do a lot more of it in 2021. They are taking content created for one instance and repurposing it, perhaps because many companies aren’t doing production right now. There’s not a lot of original content being produced by advertising agencies because of the pandemic.
What is user-generated content? User-generated content (UGC) is any content—text, videos, images, reviews, etc. — created by people, rather than brands. And brands will often share UGC on their own social media accounts, website, and other marketing channels.
Consumers and marketers disagree on which content is most authentic: Consumers are 2.4x more likely to say user-generated content (UGC) is authentic compared to brand-created content, while marketers are 2.1x more likely to say brand-created content is authentic compared to UGC.
There are a couple more facts about user-generated content that are very important: it is cheap, very diverse, easy to create and consumers apprised it. The question is why brands do not embrace this opportunity? Because of the global pandemic, almost every business is in “safe mode”, they do not invest a lot of money on large-scale productions when there is the possibility to use user-generated content quickly and at scale.
Let’s look deeper into the NCS case study: How Videobolt enabled NCS to create unique, branded, engaging video content, at scale?
National Citizen Service (NCS) is a government scheme that encourages those aged 16-17 to become independent and take on roles within their community. In an attempt to double the participation and overcome negative brand perception, the agency Karmarama created a “disruptive” identity with an “unapologetic” tone of voice.
Brief
The multi-channel activation campaign ‘No We Can’ was aimed to subvert stereotypes about teenagers. The strategy was to change that by handing the narrative back to teens – using NCS social channels to give young people a voice and encouraging them to create video content with, and for the brand, by creating their own 30’ version of the TV ad.
Goal
Automate the production of personalized videos:
- Produce personalized content that combines video uploaded by users with creative from the TVC
- Integration with client’s content management software
- Video template creation according to briefed design with user’s video placeholder
Videobolt created a video template with a 6-second user-video placeholder.
Videobolt technology-enabled NCS (and their creative agency) to automatically generate video ads.
The campaign was rolled out across social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube – to appeal to the target audience with a series of animations that revealed the scheme’s new identity.
The success
The ‘NO WE CAN’ campaign won the Social Media Awards 2020 by Design Week. The judges said: “Putting the message back to the audience is a great twist that gives the messaging empowerment and makes it relatable. The attitude in the No We Can messaging works well to shrug off negative perceptions of the youth. It seeks to provide meaningful content and engagement for the stated target group.
The result
Unique user-generated branded personalized videos at scale.
“The Videbolt.net team has been responsive and supportive of all our needs throughout the process; enabling us to make timely updates and adjustments in a campaign to maximize the quality of output.”
Conclusion
The creation of video content has become a necessity for everyone serious about their marketing. Thanks to technology, it was never easier to create videos, hence the businesses struggle with coming up with ways to create unique content that will stand out. Luckily, the ones who are brave enough to adopt the new trends such as creating user-generated video content at scale may earn a competitive advantage.