This is almost certainly not what the advocates of crowd sourcing had in mind, but my favourite maverick planner, John Griffiths, has come up with a new application for consumer generated content. The big challenge facing any creative agency is to avoid generic or stereotypical advertising ideas … and the best way to identify these ideas? … invite research respondents to produce their own ads. These rough, consumer generated concepts are then shown to the agency creative teams to illustrate the type of generic, clichéd work that they should avoid. John has tested this concept with Leo Burnett and claims that it significantly speeds up the creative process. He has also found that showing clients the consumer generated work makes it far easier to convince them to adopt breakthrough, unconventional creative ideas.
Much has been written about the inevitable rise of consumer generated advertising. Some would even have us believe that in the new age of empowerment, all advertising should be created by consumers. John’s work with Leo Burnett reminds us that, all too often, the work created by consumers can be generic and stereotypical. The crowd will rarely come up with ideas that are as powerful and engaging and those developed by highly skilled creative thinkers.