Here, we bring you 5 UGC campaigns that clicked, big time.
GoPro
Smartphones have helped all those closeted film-makers who previously only dreamed of making films to actually go and live their dream. But what GoPro has done is to inspire those millions of wannabe film-makers out there to shoot their own GoPro stories and share them with the world. Their Youtube channel is filled with crazy videos taken while skateboarding, rock climbing, surfing, snowboarding, flying. You get the drift. One of their most endearing and also most watched videos shows a pelican learning to fly. That’s using your product to tell a story, that will touch anyone.
The abandoned pelican was taught to fly by the staff of Greystoke Mahale in Tanzania. His first flight was captured using a GoPro camera.
TripAdvisor
When you’re planning your next vacation, who are the first people that come to your mind to take suggestions from? Your friends and family. That’s pretty much what TripAdvisor had in mind when they decided to give the reins of their advertising campaign, over to their users. The first ever TripAdvisor TV ad contest invited people to send in amateur videos shot using their own cameras. The brief was simple- how can TripAdvisor make your trip, better? Another example of using your audience to create simple stories that pack a punch. And scoring big on engagement too.
The ‘Fargo’ ad won the big prize of $25,000. In return for that TripAdvisor got a funny, simple ad that communicated what they were all about and a campaign idea that hit the sweet spot between creativity and engagement.
IKEA
There are stores that sell furniture and then there is IKEA. They’ve always been a step ahead when it comes to selling their products creatively. IKEA Norway put a fun spin on things when they decided to come out with their digital catalogue. A contest that invited their catalogue subscribers to take pictures of a piece of furniture from the physical catalogue and post it on Instagram. The ask was that they upload the picture with the appropriate hashtag of the catalogue and the product. Winners of the campaign stood a chance to win the piece of furniture that they had posted. Thousands of pictures streamed in and soon the entire catalogue had been captured, digitally. What did it cost IKEA? Nothing.
The IKEA campaign brought real and digital together, seamlessly.
Burberry
There is nothing more iconic to classic fashion than the classy trench. And there are few brands that can compete with Burberry when it comes to being associated with the ‘trench coat’. It is for this reason that the Burberry Art of Trench campaign is considered one of the most powerful yet simplest examples of the power of user generated content. The campaign invited Burberry enthusiasts from across the globe submit their own pictures to the website. The result- an online catalogue of men and women from different parts of the world wearing Burberry trench coats. Users can browse through trench coats by weather, size, colour and even comment on them. The idea was an instant hit and brought together relevance and engagement in an industry that is characterised by its fickle nature.
Burberry Art of Trench takes fashion beyond the ramps to streets, making it relevant everywhere
Nissan
Let’s face it, stop-motion is fascinating. What is more fascinating than it is building a cut-out version of a car and shooting a stop-motion video that could get you a thousand dollar gift card from Amazon and a mention in an actual commercial! Sounds exciting enough to sit up and take note doesn’t it? Nissan thought so too. Which is why they launched the Nissan VersaVid Vine and Instagram contest which invited wannabe film-makers to shoot stop-motion videos of the Nissan Versa cut-out and post them on Vine and Instagram. All you had to do was make the cut-out version of the car, snap a video of it in an interesting manner and post it on Vine or Instagram using #VersaVid.
The campaign manages to combine the power of visual storytelling along with the engagement of user generated content.
It’s clear that User Generated Content as a form of engagement is increasingly becoming more popular among marketers. If you’re looking for some inspiration from the most discussed and engaging content around UGC campaigns, you can find it here. EpicBeat is a content discovery platform that brings you the most popular and share worthy content across networking platforms.
Here’s what we found when we ran a search for User Generated Content. Clearly, it’s a hot favorite among the Twitterati!
To know more interesting insights on what kind of content works where, click here.