Brand Generated Content v User Generated Content

Spoiler alert! Consumers are a savvy bunch, they’re not blindly loyal to your brand like they once were. In addition, they’re used to, and increasingly sceptical of, most types of marketing and advertising efforts.

This is something that has only heightened over the last 18 months, as they’ve been bombarded with an endless stream of announcements, messaging and advertising, otherwise known as brand generated content (BGC).

Quite simply it’s no longer enough to tell consumers how great your company is, or how fabulous your products and services are. Today, when it comes to brand equity and brand loyalty, consumers crave more from you. They want to associate with and buy from brands that are authentic, trustworthy, and relevant to their lives.

Can brand generated content really achieve this?

Branded Content in the Age Of Trust

BGC messaging is easier to control and moderate, of course, but it’s far less influential in purchasing decisions. When consumers are asked why this is, the big-ticket issue is always one of trust.

Recent research by two leading OOH media platforms found that only 3% of consumers have trust in brands, despite 81% agreeing that trust is a deciding factor in purchasing decisions. However, there is some good news…

Consumers want to trust your brand, but you need to earn it with each and every interaction. According to the most recent Edelman Trust Barometer 61% of consumers will advocate a brand if they fully trust it.

And it’s that all-important advocacy factor that is the driving force behind the shift to User Generated Content (UGC).

Fact! UGC performs better than BGC

User-generated content is the ultimate in brand advocacy – selling your brand values alongside your customers' creativity.

UGC is your brand telling an authentic story by way of persona association - through the real people who buy your products or services interacting with them. Some of the best adverts of recent years have come from the highly creative minds of everyday people.

It works. 90% of consumers say UGC holds more influence in buying decisions than promotional materials (BGC), and 92% of consumers trust organic UGC more than traditional advertising. What is more, UGC-based advertising generate 4x higher click through rates.

So, it’s somewhat surprising then that only 16% of brands have a UGC strategy.

Entice your customers to work for you

There’s a veritable hivemind of creativity out there for you to harness. Consumers are creating and sharing videos in record numbers.

Newsflare’s 40,000-strong content creation community constantly surprises us with the creative ways they interact with the brands they love. We have over 230,000 clips on our platform which can quickly be tracked and filtered to expose unexpected, disruptive and unique content through the power of artificial intelligence, algorithms and sophisticated martech. Once uncovered, this content can help you build brand loyalty, up-scale authenticity and credibility, and importantly encourage advocacy.

The chances are your next authentic user-generated commercial is sitting there waiting for you already. But if isn’t, all is not lost - it can be crowdsourced. Reach out to our creators with a brief and they’ll deliver you something truly special.

Newsflare can help you ditch BGC in favour of UGC. Get in touch today before you spend your budget on creating something less effective.

Get in touch to find out how to license videos from Newsflare.