The importance of moderation

Having someone else do your work might seem bold, however marketers have ingeniously dubbed this practice ‘User Generated Content’ and with stats like the below you can understand why it’s such a game changer:

• It can lead to a 400% increase in your click through rate¹
• Millennials trust UGC 50% more than traditional media²
• 92% of people trust recommendations from their friends and family over other types of advertising³
• 48% of people say that UGC is a great way to learn about new products⁴

However, there can be no reward without risk and, as your brand is your identity, the consequences of getting this wrong can be catastrophic. So before you plaster your brand on something your audience have written and/or created, you need to make sure they are not hanging you out dry.

Take the #GIFtheFeeling campaign ran by Coca-Cola – the idea was simple: users could put their own slogan over a coke branded GIF. Millennials often communicate in GIF’s and in the digital age words are required less to communicate. As such, connecting with their millennial audience and letting them create and play in their own language should have been a run-away success. Coke did have moderation for salacious words, however that wasn’t enough. Some users took the opportunity to highlight known health risks among other humorous digs. 

#GIFthefeeling of polydipsia, peripheral neuropathy and fatigue pic.twitter.com/nGi0Ahp9Vv

— phexioenesystems (@Scatterfold) January 21, 2016

Walkers suffered a similar fate with their #WalkersWave campaign. To have the chance to win tickets to the Champions League final users were to send in a photo of themselves which was then embed into a video that showed Gary Lineker holding your photo and doing the Mexican wave (side note, I love this concept and is exactly the type of digital workflow Raw Ideas pumps out). Yet the campaign hit rock bottom when Gary Linekin was holding pictures of some more nefarious characters like Jimmy Saville and Harold Shipman.

#walkerswave We shall never forget. pic.twitter.com/H9NielLIv7

— ????????Jim ???????????? (@Jim_Watford) May 25, 2017

Moderation to protect your brand is key. Coke could have used some smart word association moderation against the negative conceptions associated with the brand. Everyone knows Coke is full of sugar and resembles nothing like a health product, moderation against health-related words would have picked this up.

Walkers would have needed manual moderation, which can be labour intensive but it is the most thorough way to protect your brand. Sometimes it is not just a matter of protecting your brand but about ensuring your campaign doesn’t get hijacked by other companies.

In an annual Valentine’s Day campaign that we run for Telstra, people can send declarations of love to a 26 meter tall digital banner in the centre of Melbourne. Messages first go through automatic moderation, screening messages for salacious words, and then through manual moderation.

This isn’t just to stop the creative individuals from finding new, imaginative ways to express themselves. It’s also to screen for brands who are perhaps trying to use a campaign built for love to push a corporate agenda. Plus there is an ingenious feature: the software is self-learning, so when a specific word gets flagged as ‘banned’ it will remember that for next time.

Marketing fails can have their amusing sides but you don’t want to be the laughing stock of the internet, ensure you protect your brand and contact Raw Ideas if you want to discuss automated moderation software for your next campaign.

Source
1. https://www.business.com/articles/user-generated-content/
2. http://www.adweek.com/digital/sxsw-millennials-trust-user-generated-content-50-traditional-media/
3. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2012/consumer-trust-in-online-social-and-mobile-advertising-grows.html
4. https://blog.goodvid.io/user-generated-content-ecommerce-stats/