AI User Generated Content

UGC is best known for its ability to humanize brands, strengthen consumer trust, and produce lasting emotional connections. With the rise of generative AI recently, there is now talk of AI-generated content. This is any form of UGC that is created or enhanced by artificial intelligence. It can change existing UGC or create new content from scratch. We feel that there are so many things that can go wrong here. Does it not take away the entire point of what benefits UGC has to offer in the first place? People trust real people… How can you “humanize” your brand if you’re not even using humans? AI will never have contextual understanding and it will lead to users feeling disconnected. UGC contains local events and current trends that are based on context many times. AI will not be able to touch on this. The biggest elephant in the room is AI's lack of diversity and bias. These machine learning models are trained by humans and therefore, will inherit bias and stereotypes. Another important point to make is that no matter how “creative” the content it spits out will be, it will never have originality or depth. The only way AI can create this content is by using UGC which is already out there for a baseline. It takes all of this content and mixes it to come up with another piece of content. UGC captures emotional moments of joy, fear, comedic relief, and empathy that AI could never replace.

Interestingly enough, two different companies did two separate interviews with our CEO. One was done through a series of questions that were then generated into an article via AI programming. The other was conducted by a journalist and written by them. When we released the two articles separately about one week from each other. The human-written article outperformed the AI-generated article. We’re sure that many factors could have contributed to this, such as time of release, etc. But, we can’t help but wonder if people responded more positively to the article written personally by the journalist because deep down they felt it was more human and emotionally written. After all, it was—just something to think about.

Why Asking Open-Ended Questions is Important for Creative Businesses

How? Why? What? Open-ended questions are questions that start this way. They are designed to be thought-provoking and allow for longer and more detailed responses. Differing from closed-ended questions that typically are answered with yes or no or have some short response, they have no predetermined answers and will require some explanation. A good open-ended question always seeks genuine interest in the person’s answers. Since these types of questions require deeper thinking they can often end with breakthrough answers. The point is not about having a right or wrong answer with these so that they can elicit collaboration within a team. You can already see why this type of thought provocation within your business can be beneficial, especially when you’re trying to solve some problem. They can build rapport between employees and foster positive relationships within the company. If you’re not sure where to start with asking open-ended questions here are some tips and examples.

1.     Be mindful: Keep an eye on yourself and the types of questions that you tend to ask naturally. Are they closed or open-ended in nature? If they are mostly closed, try turning them into open. For example, you ask, “Did you like the presentation?” Now, let’s turn this into an open-ended question instead by saying, “What did you think of the presentation? Do you see improvements that need to be made? What things do you particularly enjoy? Now, instead of a yes or no and possibly even a meh it was ok answer, you have opened up the door for discussion.

2.     Follow up with an open-ended question: First, look at the above example again by asking, “Did you like the presentation?” Followed up with, “What did you like or not like about it?

3.     Don’t go through the motions: Try to remember that sometimes running off on a tangent will happen. These questions are designed to provoke thought and collaboration. Sometimes you may have to reel it back in a little but don’t be too rigid on how the conversation should go. “Be like water my friend” - Bruce Lee.

If you need some ideas of examples for open-ended questions to get you started here are a couple to get you going.

1.     What do you believe is the root of the problem?

2.     What objectives can help solve this problem?

3.     Could you provide an example of what you’re talking about?

4.     If this isn’t working for you, can you help me understand why?

5.     Would you mind elaborating?

We hope this helps you on your way to opening up discussions within your teams for your business. Having a team that thinks deeply in the creative spaces of advertising is crucial to coming up with good ideas. Sometimes all you need is a conversation to take your minds where they hadn’t thought to go yet.

Myths About User-Generated Content

There are some myths surrounding UGC that have been circulating since it spawned. We want to take some time to debunk these for you. Let’s take a look at some of the most common myths about UGC.

1.     It’s easy to curate and license: Finding specific content to fit a creative brief can be more difficult than it seems. If your agency or brand has ever tried it then you know how time-consuming it can be to find the right content AND  track down the owner of a particular piece of content. There are also specific legal requirements for clearance that are necessary to have the rights to use the content.

2.     It’s free: Sometimes social media campaigns can get free content yes. However, creators will not want to license their photos and videos for free when curating and licensing content. A lot of times these people make money through their content and social media channels. This is their livelihood that’s at stake so be prepared to pay a little something if not a lot depending on their following, etc. If they are willing to license their content for free it must be stipulated beforehand. Everything must also be in writing in legal documents.

3.     It’s only for social media campaigns: UGC has become mainstream now. It’s used in all things from social media marketing campaigns, hashtags, and photo books, to video advertisements.

4.     It doesn’t generate revenue: The ROI of UGC advertisements can be up to 4.5% higher in terms of conversion rates. One of the reasons for the high return on investment of UGC advertising is that it costs so much less than traditional forms of ads. Yes, you will have to pay for licensing and labor costs but it will still cut your ad spend by about 60%.

5.     It’s only for certain brands: UGC is for ALL brands and agencies. In any category, people will connect with real people that UGC offers. It fuels connections with authenticity. It humanizes brands.

6.     UGC is low quality: This one is an age-old myth. We hope that most of you realize that it’s no longer true in the age of smart phones. While UGC was once a low-quality “VHS and Beta Rape” type of vibe, it has morphed into something special. Everyone is now a creator who can develop striking videos and images.

Debunked! We hope this helps you understand the ins and outs of UGC a bit better from the inside someone who understands and knows the industry. These are some typical myths that come along with the job but we want to set the record straight.

Theory of Reasoned Action

We recently listened to a great episode of the Mark Groves podcast with costar guest, Robert Greene on the art of seduction. By seduction, we don’t mean what you all think. Seduction is persuasion and is an element of gaining power. This is something all brands strive to attain to gain new customers. All advertising is based on some sort of persuasion to influence attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. This is where the Theory of Reasoned Action comes into play. This theory is an attempt to understand the relationship between attitudes, and beliefs and determine behavioral intention of human actions. There are three things to consider here. 1. Attitudes as a function of beliefs and evaluations of the outcomes. 2. Subjective norms of society as a function of normative beliefs. 3. Motivation to comply and self-control is a function of these beliefs with consideration to how much sway they hold over the person. These three things lead to behavioral intentions. So, now it’s important to understand what controls these beliefs that we all have and where they stem from. Some background factors are personal, demographic, and environmental.

1. Personal

   1. Self-esteem

   2. Personality traits

   3. Emotions

   4. Health

2. Demographics

   1. Age

   2. Gender

   3. Race, ethnicity

   4. Education level

   5. Income

   6. Religious beliefs

3. Environment

   1. Stress levels

   2. Media exposure level

An interesting study done on one Nike advertisement can explain how understanding this theory can help brands promote a paradigm shift to sell a product. The ad was “I Have Thunder Thighs.” In this case, they’re promoting body positivity for women. They tell women to embrace their thunder thighs and it’s a compliment to be told that you have them. Let’s take a deeper look here. The study shows that the first component is the attitude of beliefs and evaluations. They try to sway their audience to love their body as it encourages positive attitudes toward self-esteem and confidence. Next, they tackle subjective norms of social pressures to engage or disengage from behaviors based on what is considered “socially normal.” Nike encourages a community of women who support each other as they are and that they want you to be healthy and fit. Behavioral intention is next inferred to adopt a healthy lifestyle or continue one. Lastly, and most importantly, behavior is what Nike wants their audience to do. They want them to exercise, be confident, and embrace themselves despite what size and shape society tells them to be. This ad shows how advertising uses persuasion techniques to sell a product. Understanding this theory can help advertising agencies the best ways to go about persuading the audience in favor of their product.

7 Steps: A Guide for Logical Decision Making

Critical decisions can be tough to make in the business world. Rational decisions are important when we as humans tend to be highly emotional. However, there is a model to help those who have to make these difficult choices daily in the workplace. This guide can make the process less stressful and help you come up with clear solutions that are the best. Here’s how it goes:

1.     Identify the decision that must be made: Clearly define your decision or problem.

2.     Gather relevant information: Find all data pertaining to the problem or decision that must be made. This can be internal (inside the workplace) or external (outside the workplace). This is where the brainstorming begins once the data has all been gathered.

3.     Find alternative answers: How many different ways can you spin this? How many solutions are there? Write down a pros and cons list of each one. Do the pros outweigh the cons? SWOT analysis and decision matrixes are helpful here too.

4.     Weigh your findings: Place each alternative in order of ranking from highest to lowest based on the pros and cons lists you created. Which ones make the most sense?  

5.     Choose: Now it’s time to choose the best solution for your problem. Sometimes a blend of a few of the alternatives may be the answer and not just one single solution. Being an effective decision-maker involves creativity and confidence.

6.     Act: Now that you have chosen it is time to act. Implement your decision but take the time to create a plan so that the team is on the same page.

7.     Monitor and Review: Did the decision solve the problem? Here is where you can look at the results of the solution. Look at the solution and evaluate whether or not it has resolved the problem properly. Are you satisfied with the outcome? If the answer is no, this is when you can try another option.

Human nature causes us to be emotional but decisions should be made rationally. We shouldn’t make decisions based on reasoning that is backed by feeling. Logical decision-making can be tough to do sometimes. Following this guideline can help you and your team make the right decisions for the brand/business. Good luck and we hope this helps!

5 Years on the Rails

Happy birthday to us! We absolutely cannot believe that it has been half a decade already on the tracks together. We’ve officially turned five years old and couldn’t be more excited about the years to come. We would like to thank all of our partners for trusting us with their UGC advertising campaigns. You helped us turn a dream into a reality. Thank you to all of our employees, especially those who have been with us since day one! You all are the cogs in the machine that makes this company run efficiently with all of your hard work. Lastly, big thanks to all the content creators out there! Without your amazing photos and videos, there would be nothing to source and use for the spots we’ve been a part of. It’s been a pleasure partnering with every one of you who has been an ally for us over the years! Cheers to many more together!