I was recently directed to an article - Hot in 2007, UGC Takes Bleacher Seat at this Year’s Super Bowl, posted on January 16 at Tripinfo.com - that said this year’s Super Bowl advertisers didn’t include as much user-generated content and are less interactive than a year ago. I’m not familiar with Tripinfo.com and not sure why they are re-posting this Matthew G. Nelson piece, but I digress.

What I do find interesting is that the article had quotes from a marketing official at Cymfony and the EVP of Nielsen Online. Both companies have done research and tracking around Super Bowl advertising in the past, so I by no means doubt their knowledge in the area. However, I am challenging their stance that companies are shying away from creating pre-game buzz via consumer interaction.

“I’m seeing a decline [in interactive elements] compared to last year,” said Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing office for Cymfony, a brand monitoring company. “We’ve been tracking all this stuff for a month and a half, and the volume of traditional online discussion and media coverage is a lot lower than last year.”

Interesting. Maybe this article was published before Budweiser announced that a top-secret Super Bowl ad would be disclosed to viewers who voted on their other game-day commercials at BudBowl.com . Or Go Daddy previewed their spot that directs ad junkies and “racing fans” to GoDaddy.com during the game for exclusive Danica Patrick footage. And, if you really want to see the new Audi commercial before it airs, make sure you go to their website and register. All three of these “interactive elements” produced buzz for their respective company.

Pete Blackshaw from Neilsen Online didn’t make as bold a statement, but rather gave his interpretation why UGC isn’t as prevelent this year:

“There were definitely some watershed elements of last year, especially around the contest and promotion to create your own ad,” he said. “At the same time… for a lot of advertisers that idea has been tried and doesn’t have the potential to have the same return as something that’s more original.”

Collective Intellect, like Cymfony, has been tracking Super Bowl advertising online for the past two to three months. And similar to Nielson Online, CI monitors online sources, placing more emphasis on blogs and message boards in online monitoring of companies, brands and themes.

Tracking Super Bowl advertising discussions has shown a lot of blog content over the past month, much more than traditional online news. Because CI didn’t track the Big Game last year, it is impossible to make a comparison. But based on my social media knowledge, anytime a subject produces more blog activity than news, there is a lot of conversation around an area.

One week before the Super Bowl, Share of Voice across advertisers was what most people expected with Pepsi, Bud, Go Daddy and Audi leading the field.

It’s important to note here that Budweiser – bloggers are promising Bud will run anywhere from 7 to 10 spots – still has less activity than Pepsi. And Go Daddy - only showing one commercial – owns a rather larger share of voice, giving it a higher rate of return than Bud.

Even more amazing is Doritos - the most interactive campaign of all advertisers – shows surprisingly low blog activity when compared to the other advertising king-pins above. This would support Blackshaw’s opinion that UGC is old news and consumers aren’t impressed.

And after examining this graph, I would agree with Blackshaw that UGC is not effective in 2008. I believe that social media - blogs, message boards and social networks - have taken its place. Most people don’t have the time, desire or skill to record a song and send it into Doritos, but they do have five or ten minutes to blog about a Pepsi commercial.

The evidence is in the numbers. Companies no longer need to include consumers in their commercials, they need to place their commercials on the consumer platform — in social media. If we examine the spikes in the above graph, it provides insight on how this game works.

Every activity explosion occurs when a company releases new information directly to bloggers, or when the information is picked up by bloggers. For example:

• Pepsi and Amazon reveals their MP3 campaign on 1/14.
• Five of Budweiser’s commercials are revealed including the top-secret ad mentioned above on 1/22.
• Go Daddy discloses info on their rejected ad, causing curiosity through controversy on 1/24.

Companies create buzz with these tactics and are still able to unleash their agencies to create professional creative that will most likely have greater viral spread than any American Idol wanna-be band playing during the Doritos 2.7 whatever million dollar spot.

My point is, UGC isn’t dead. Instead, it has morphed into social media, and is less about interactive content. Every blog post, message board entry and You Tube comment is a form of user-generated content, because other consumers read it, write it and make their own comments. Using these methods, the only thing you need to create or add to a campaign is a computer with Internet connection — no music skills required.

In the Political spectrum, the blogosphere is successfully being used to predict which candidates will win each state’s primary. Applying this strategy to Super Bowl advertising campaigns would predict Pepsi, Bud, Audi and Go Daddy to have the most successful campaigns in ’08. It will also be interesting to see which advertising agencies can propel their clients into this group of elites without the pre-buzz head start. This Sunday will provide all of the answers.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture //