Incredible Journey Back to Authentic Storytelling: Part Two

Trust is integral to any healthy relationship between a brand and its customers.  PwC’s 2018 Global Consumer Insights survey found that respondents ranked brand trust as one of their top priorities, which is why brands should seek to increase it wherever possible.  One of the most reliable ways to build trust is to provide your customers with authentic experiences, often found in the form of engaging, relatable content.  Consumers are spending much more of their time on social media following friends, family and peers, so authentic or "familiar" content is more consistent now than ever before -- think user-generated content (UGC).  As a result, consumers are more suspicious of advertising that feels artificial and disconnected from their daily experiences, and brands can’t afford to ignore this shift in expectations.

Social media hasn’t just made interactions with customers more natural -- it has democratized content creation so that real people can contribute to the experiences brands are trying to create.  Thanks to the open internet, there is an enormous, constantly refreshed repository of videos, images and audio files waiting to be discovered -- or “found.”  With the inexorable rise of social media, there isn’t just going to be more found content, such as UGC, available, there’s going to be a much larger audience for it.  Word to the wise: just because something is posted online doesn’t mean it’s totally free to use.  This content still needs to be properly licensed and its creator fairly compensated.

Stephanie Ambroise is the Senior Business Affairs Manager at TBWA, and she explains that UGC isn’t just popular because it saves brands and agencies money; it’s also a better reflection of consumers’ lived experiences.  “[Creative] decisions are definitely driven by budget but are also dependent on the message and visual content that we are trying to create," she says.  "Real people are more authentic and (UGC) is more plausible to a consumer.  It’s more relatable and can create stronger connections.  It’s somewhat easier to source now because more people are broadcasting their lives.”

The lines between a professional or non-professional content creator are blurred, which creates a huge opportunity for brands to use authentic content to tell different kinds of stories that haven’t been able to be told before.  Pineiro refers to this as the “democratization of advertising” -- a bottom-up type of advertising that doesn’t just incorporate the work of real people, but is also more responsive to shifts in consumers’ attitudes.

Consumers are exposed to more content created by “non-professionals” today than ever before, and they often prefer it to more traditional forms of media.  Their sources of information and engagement have multiplied and been radically restructured.  Top-down communication is giving way to open platforms like social media.  According to a recent Olapic survey, respondents “trust images of other consumers on social media 7x more than advertising.”  Olapic also reports that 56 percent of those surveyed say they’re “more likely to buy a product after seeing it featured in a positive or relatable user-generated image.”  A survey released by TurnTo and Ipsos in 2017 found that more respondents listed UGC as an “extremely influential” factor in their purchasing decisions than search engines, promotional emails, display ads, mobile messaging and social media.

According to the TurnTo/Ipsos survey, 72 percent of respondents between the ages of 18-24 say UGC is “extremely influential” or “very influential” in their purchasing decisions.  This proportion is 63 percent for 25-29-year-olds and 64 percent among 30-39-year-olds.

Aaron Duffy, named to the “AdWeek Creative 100” list and Business Insider’s “Creative Top 30,” is the founder and CEO of SpecialGuest.  He points out how his agency’s role has changed with the explosion of user-generated video content.  “We are filmmakers, yet half the work I’ve done over the last couple years hasn’t been filmmaking per se but using the content created by regular people to create films,” he says.  Typically, a script is written and content is sourced to fit within it.  With found content, the ideation process is more fluid, with content driving the development of the script.  Writers and editors end up weaving different pieces of the story together, based on each individual piece of content -- an entirely new, innately organic process.

In other words, Duffy sometimes finds his role as a creative is less about generating original film content and more about finding existing content that can be woven together to tell a story, connect the dots and ultimately influence the consumer toward action.

Key takeaway:  The gatekeepers at traditional media outlets are constantly ceding ground to user-driven communication platforms, and they won’t be reclaiming it anytime soon.  Consumers are increasingly demanding authentic content that resonates with their personal experiences.  Brands can take advantage of this shift in expectations by making found content a core part of their advertising strategy. In essence, this can save tremendous amounts of money and cast wider creative nets by “looking to the people” for inspiration, first.

Read the Introduction to this series.

Read Part One of this series.

Coming next:  Trend Three -- Found Content as a Creative Medium

Note:  The full report, titled Catch&Release 2019 Trends in Advertising: The Incredible Journey Back to Authentic Storytelling, is available via a downloadable .pdf.

Photo credit:  Catch&Release

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