CGM glossary

Extract from ClickZ Experts
The Official CGM Glossary› › › CMO
BY Pete BlackshawMarch 06, 2007

Consumer-generated media (CGM): At its core, CGM represents first-person commentary posted or shared across a host of expression venues, including message boards, forums, rating and review sites, groups, social networking sites, blogs, and, of course, video-sharing sites. It's commonly influenced or informed by relevant experience with brands (e.g., "I'm so angry with Jet Blue," "I love Target"). Although direct company feedback and general offline water cooler talk technically count as CGM, they have less of an enduring latency effect because they're not archived online for easy access by other consumers. CGM emphasizes the "media" rather than "content" precisely because it acts like paid media. Whether through search queries or serendipitous discovery, CGM frequently intercepts other consumers during the purchase cycle and, coupled with high trust levels, impacts business results.

Consumer-generated multimedia (CGM2): This subset of CGM is more anchored to "site, sound, and motion" components, each with the potential to dial up the effect and persuasiveness of the consumer storytelling. Visualization elevates drama, emotional resonance, and the ability to prove one's case through documentation (one big reason TV commercials have been so hard for advertisers to shake). Video is far and away the most significant form of CGM2, and sites like YouTube and MySpace lead the pack. By and large, CGM2 reflects unaided, or organic, consumer content creation. It may implicate brands positively or negatively, but the marketer has no direct hand in its creation. The Kryptonite lock video is one of the earliest examples. Brands like Apple have seen plenty of CGM2 on both the positive and negative side of things.

Consumer-fortified media (CFM): Unilever's Dove Evolution is a classic example of CFM. The advertisers created the spot, but its meaning was shaped, or fortified, by the conversation, commentary, and debate that wrapped around the content. The right combination can create an exponential positive buzz lift or outright disaster. In the case of Dove Evolution, tens of thousands of women talked about the ad, embedded it in their blogs, and wrapped fresh commentary around the core. The same thing often happens when the news networks drop enticing news segments on their sites or YouTube. Just think about the New York TV video on rats at Taco Bell or the TV networks seeding a Justin Timberlake "rap" on YouTube. The input is credentialed and formal; the output is fortified (and validated) by the consumer voice.

Consumer-solicited media (CSM): The term that most commonly captures this form is "co-creation." Others loosely call it "participatory advertising." In essence, the marketer sets the specs, and consumers exercise a range of creativity and brand evangelism within those parameters. It could be a create-your-own-ad contest, or an upload-your-experience photo or video utility on a brand Web site. Recent examples include the Dove ad during the Oscars (the product of a contest) and the Frito-Lay, GM, and NFL spots during the Super Bowl. One of the very first examples is MoveOn.org's "Bush in 30 Seconds" campaign three years ago. Think about an RFP (define) whereby we set criteria for suppliers to duke it out to win our marketing business. CSM has the potential to be hugely effective, but it's not entirely pure or organic.
Compensated consumer-generated media (CCGM): This is when marketers outright pay consumers to do certain things, or when publishers compensate artists or content creators for submissions. In a video context, there are both benign and inappropriate applications. Revenue-sharing models like Revver (potentially forthcoming on YouTube) apply an issue- or slant-agnostic approach to the compensation structure. Positive or negative, if your contribution draws the eyeballs (and provided you're not using illegal content), you take a piece of the revenue. On the less savory side, if your video model is like PayPerPost, where contributors are outright paid to endorse or promote a product and the disclosure factor is submerged in murkiness, there's a far higher risk and backlash factor. Lots more discussion is needed over this... soon.

Paid media: This is exactly as it sounds. Marketers buy media, usually in the form of impressions, to affect sales. Some call this "marketer-generated media" (MGM), but the old description works just fine. In the context of video, paid media may come in the form of the pre-roll, post-roll, or official sponsor link. Sometimes this, too, gets a bit fuzzy, but by and large the distinction is pretty clear.

Consumer generated media - eh?

An extract from the pocker guide to consumer generated media
Pete Blackshaw, 28 June 2007.

The fastest-growing media is one consumers create and share among themselves. It's trusted and TiVo-resistant. It presents long-lasting sources of influence. Listening to and leveraging such media may well be the most important source of competitive advantage for companies and brands.

Unlike paid media, CGM is created by consumers. It's often inspired by relevant product or service experiences and is frequently archived online for readers convenience and other consumers or key marketplace influencers. Examples of CGM include blog entries, consumer email feedback, message board posts, forum comments, personal Web sites, and personal email.

1.4 billion CGM comments are archived on the Web today. That number is growing 30 percent annually. None of this is terribly surprising when you consider the Pew Internet & American Life Project estimates 44 percent of online consumers have created online "content."

CGM can be influenced, but not controlled, by marketers. CGM delivers high-impact, targeted ad impressions well outside the scope of conversation among "familiars," a big reason it bears an important distinction from word of mouth. Search in particular magnifies CGM reach and effect by matching those who create it ("speakers") with curious, information-hungry preshoppers ("seekers").

Most important, CGM leaves a digital trail. It's highly measurable, allowing advertisers to gauge brand equity, reputation, and message effectiveness in real time. Advertisers must take accountability for the scope and effect of such media and use it to make more-informed decisions. One important first step is to understand CGM various forms.

blogs. The majority of today's blogs are rich, unaided first-person narratives across a host of topics. They mirror insight-rich focus groups but are even better. Though consumers rarely dedicate blogs to brands, brand experiences abundantly decorate blog narratives. Often, the texture of brand commentary is incidental, implied, even unconscious in nature. This can shed light on how advertising truly works. Thanks to RSS and blogs highly networked nature, they're quickly becoming the most potent form of CGM. They also index fastest on search engines.

Message boards and forums. These are industry- or interest-focused areas that draw consumers based on a particular product, specialty, or niche. Typically, they draw consumers interested in specific products (automobiles, computers, electronics, software) or issues (politics, baby/parenting, lifestyle, travel). Active participants tend to be folks who have experienced the products or issue in question. Buyers tend to be the listeners. Social network sites also make ample use of message boards.

Review/rating sites. There are far fewer CGM "impressions" in this venue, but the reach and effect are enormous, especially in regard to consumer purchase behavior. Reviews are typically grounded in relevant experience, which significantly dials up credibility and trust. Amazon.com, eBay, Edmunds.com, and Epinions.com all fall into this category. Ratings add an important quantitative dimension.

Clubs or groups. These are highly focused, often specialized sites where aficionados congregate around a single issue, product, or item. They can be public or private. Although membership is usually small (up to hundreds of users), tens of thousands of such groups exist. Groups can range from celebrity fan clubs to stamp collectors sites to automobile owners sites to book clubs.

Direct company feedback. This critical, often overlooked form of CGM is targeted directly to companies, but consumers who exercise this channel typically offer their feelings across multiple platforms. Some of our recent research shows nearly 70 percent of consumers who provide feedback through company/brand Web sites are active across other CGM venues, including boards and blogs. The good news for companies is this channel is controllable. The challenge is shifting from an operational, "I don't want consumer attention" cost-center mindset to a marketing-centered, "I'll take whatever consumer attention I can get" one.

Third-party Web sites. Smaller yet active groups of consumers generate high-impact CGM on third-party feedback sites such as Complaints.com and My3cents.com. The Better Business Bureau's online service also captures, archives, and makes publicly available certain forms of "escalated" CGM. Media writers and financial analysts often quote such sources.
Introducing CGM2

CGM is rapidly adopting the same rich-media formats we see in online advertising. This, too, needs to be understood. A few examples of CGM2, or consumer-generated multimedia:

Moblogs, photo sharing, and tagging. Moblogs are mobile-enabled blogs that let users post photos from anywhere. Interestingly, many of the online photos today are efficiently tagged with labels such as "BadMcDonaldsExperience," which makes them easier to find, organize, and index through search engines. Camera phones play a huge role in moblog growth.

Vlogs/personal videos. Vlogs are basically video-based journals, almost like reality TV for online. Thanks to iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, and other tools, it's getting easier to create sticky, viral, even incriminating online video.

Podcasting. Think of this as TiVo meets radio. Consumers create their own radio broadcasts and make them available for others. Because they're so darn easy to create, expect to see a ton of them.

Consumers are dictating the terms of media reach, frequency, and impact. We must stay on top of this. Increasingly, we live in a consumer-controlled surveillance society, and CGM the currency.