How to inspire value-laden collaborative consumer-generated content

Marketing is evolving into true participatory conversations. Once-tidy, controlled marketing communications with distinct, identifiable corporate spokes-people are giving way to a messy tangle of market-based communications consisting of multiple authors including customers, competitors, observers, employees, and interested collectives. Amidst this, we find consumer-generated content (CGC) that is predominantly antithetical to previous studies, which assumed CGC to be inspired by personal brand attachment and/or the desire to see discrete-authored CGC disseminated, or even motivated by monetary reward. Authorship of collaboratively-produced CGC is virtually untraceable, unknown, and monetarily uncompensated. The true reward is the process, and the outcome is not reliant on technical prowess but rather semiotic manipulation, narrative manipulation, and complex brand character development. Consumers-especially those who are members of active consumer collectives-are skillful, proficient, and prolific in the creation of CGC, with high resonance among very engaged consumers. We advocate harnessing collaborative CGC efforts toward long-term marketing objectives, and offer a brief tutorial. (C) 2011 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. All rights reserved.