Influx

The ad story of Superbowl 2007 was consumer generation, now it seems the movement is on the wane.

For example, Teresa Iezzi of Creativity is currently mesmerized by the production in the latest ads from Nike and Halo.

While lo-fi might be the dominant form on YouTube, agencies at least appear to be moving on.

So, was consumer-generation just a production technique for television commercials all along?

Was there ever anything deeper going on?

Most campaigns have token gestures to CG, but not much more.

In the product development space there seem to be the odd examples of marketers tapping into the creativity of consumers for new ideas, but this limited.

Are marketers just happy with the same old command and control formula and do they feel satisfied that focus groups and conventional research are the best ways of bringing consumer thinking to their business?

Are they scared of consumer ideas?

This all seems to run counter to the way the social networking model is developing. People are looking for dialog with other people and brands should be no different.

The killer application is finding a way to tap into consumer thinking and creativity through the social network, but to do it in a way that doesn’t involve classical advertising.

Agencies need to find a way to make this happen for their clients or someone else will.

Posted by Ed Cotton