User Generated: You can’t buy this
Modern Warfare: Frozen Crossing (A Modern Warfare Tribute)
Apology for the video skewing the CSS. But it’s the smallest one. And it’s awesome!
This is a fantastic piece of user-generated content. It is driven with passion and enthusiasm – and I think this is what many agencies and clients are after. But this didn’t happen over night, nor even in three months. And maybe that’s a little harder to explain to both parties alike. Kotaku have more details about this particular build.
BUT: This video, even though it’s brilliant and had over 1.5 million views at the time of this post – is still really only of interest to the community that already exists around Modern Warfare. Although, by increasing game-awareness (coined!) it can lead to increase in sales of this game with other gamers who have now viewed the video on Kotaku and YouTube.
Driving UGC
So what are some of the elements you need to drive UGC? Well firstly it has to start with an exceptional product or service or an aspirational brand (e.g. Canon, Apple etc) and secondly having assets give away the tools and assets you use for your product or service to allow them to be mashed-up (remember the “level creators” of the old first-person shooters?). Thirdly, and what I think is really key here is about an engaged community.
And yes, once again we find ourselves looking at ‘social media’ with key elements of content & community.
The community behind Call of Duty was founded in 2003 with the release of the first edition of the game. Since then it has built on:
- system and game updates via customer feedback
- developing strong brand affinity amongst gamers (comps etc)
- constantly providing products and limited merchandise for hardcore players (fueling passion – night vision goggles ;)
Is your agency prepared to stick it out for 7 years? Is your brand ready to take on a community for 7 years? Fuck it: are your staff going to be around for 7 years?
Because your community just might be ready.
2 Comments
Another reason why I think social media needs to be “owned” in-house. While good agencies can assist with developing strategy, recommending tactics and setting up social media, I firmly believe it has to be owned in-house. Many brands don’t stick with their agencies for 7 years (some don’t even stick for 7 months), and although internal staff will also likely change in 7 years, if the brand is passionate about social media and develops that in their org culture, with time they will succeed.
Hey Prue,
Brand leadership should always be lead by the brand. Ownership should belong with the community. And yes, the expertise and resource utility is sometimes more efficient/economic through an agency.
I try not to let ‘ownership’ go anywhere but the customer themselves.