In my last blog post I talked about how businesses are
promoting their brand through Instagram. Instagram, and many other social media
sites allow businesses to interact with their consumers on these platforms,
which use “user-generated content (UGC).” A big question when businesses use
these sites is if it is still considered user-generated content when a business
is the one publishing the content?
A couple weeks ago I was able to attend a lecture by Paolo
Mottola, the Digital Engagement Program Manager at REI. He said a good way for a company to use
user-generated content is to support marketing campaigns with incentives for
utilizing user-generated content. He stated a better way to utilize UGC is to
give customers the spotlight. But according to Paolo, the best way to utilize
UGC is to make UGC part of the customer experience. REI is trying to integrate UGC
with the customer experience in their most recent marketing endeavor, the REI
1440 project.
According to the site, the REI 1440 Project is “A
celebration of every minute spent outside.” The project is essentially a
“minute by minute timeline making up a 24 hour day” where people can submit
photos of themselves doing activities outside and enjoying outdoors. The hope
is for numerous photos to be sent every minute of the “virtual day” (1440
minutes total, hence the name of the project).
Here is the link to the site:
On the timeline you can search for pictures based on time,
location, or activity. Viewers can upload their photos, and by adding to the
timeline REI hopes they feel they are part of a greater community that shares
their love of the outdoor, upon which they will direct this positive feeling to
the REI brand. While the 1440 project doesn’t direct consumers directly to the
products they sell, the project is still a benefit to the company because they
are building up their brand by having consumers share their pictures on their
site, essentially displaying what cool things you can do with the gear and
clothes you purchase at REI. Since it’s
inception the 1440 project has had over 1 million visitors, and all this
advertising is being done at virtually no cost to REI. With the success of the
1440 project it will be interesting to see if other organizations begin to
integrate the UGC with their customer experiences.
Wouldn't you agree that the fact that the photos are not actually directly linked to anytime of capture ruins the essance of this project? It shows them based on the time that they are uploaded...
ReplyDeleteI think a better and more authentic format would be have a running feed except it is one day behind the present. This way the photographers could post the actual time the photo was taken as long as it was taken within 24 hours. This format would actually show what people are doing throughout a 24 hour period and not just what people are doing when they arbitrarily decide to upload the photo.
That is a very interesting point. This project is suppose to represent all the activity that is taking place within a single day. I have not tried to upload any pictures to the site, but if one was able to take a picture with their phone and send it directly and easily to the timeline, that may be a way to capture the time it happened. This does then of course make it difficult because many of the regions where such activities are taking place lack cell service, so the photos can't be uploaded at the time of the picture. I do feel your suggestion would be a great way to navigate this situation.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comment. I didn't think of that aspect. But I wonder what the time lag might be. I can imagine that many of those users use their smartphones to post the photos. So similar to posts on Facebook or Instagramm the photos would be posted soon after the experience. In case of more professional photos taken with better cameras the time lag might be much longer.
ReplyDeleteI think the time lag issue is interesting. I have not uploaded anything but maybe having the option to choose the time the photo was taken would help that.
ReplyDeleteThe campaign itself seems to be more about celebrating being outdoors than the specific time it happened. REI seems to want grow the outdoor community. By giving them a place to share their adventures with other outdoor enthusiasts they can connect. So the time lag would be less of an issue.
As Colee has said, "REI seems to want to grow the outdoor community," do you see this project expanding in a way where consumers can share more information about their photos then just posting them? If a photo popped up that I thought was especially cool, I would love to be able to learn more about the photo, the person who took it, what they were doing, etc.
ReplyDelete