Some examples of UGC used in marketing campaigns
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2025 3:49 am
One of the strategic insertions of UGC in brand marketing campaigns is found on social platforms: in many cases, for example, customers are asked to take photos and selfies that portray them with their products and share them from their accounts, creating buzz and thus increasing the reach of the brand message; in this regard, an example is Coca-Cola with the #ShareACoke campaign: in the summer of 2014, Coca-Cola launched “Share a Coke” in Australia, with cans and bottles personalized with the 150 most popular names in the country, obtaining excellent results in terms of UGC, with many shares of photos of cans of the product. Subsequently, Coca-Cola added another 50 names to the list and installed kiosks to allow people to personalize their cans. The campaign then went global and saw the writing on the cans and bottles also be replaced by common names such as “Mom”, “Dad”, “Love”. In Italy, later, in June 2014, the campaign was launched: “With Coca-Cola, if you can’t find the words… #sayitwithasong!”, where, instead of names, titles and phrases of Italian and foreign songs appeared. The campaign was launched on the occasion of the Coca-Cola Summer Festival, the brand’s tour on Italian beaches.
Another strategy that uses jordan cell phone number list UGC is to ask your audience to tell a story, your brand story; alternatively, you can run contests that end up with a new logo or a new visual identity or new ideas for a commercial: Starbucks' "White Cup Contest" in April 2014, for example, was aimed at redesigning the logo on the brand's white cup. Launching the hashtag #WhiteCupContest, Starbucks invited customers to send photos of their hand-decorated white cups of the brand, with the chance to win a $300 gift card and their drawing as the design of a limited-edition Starbucks cup. Since the effort required to create the content was not insignificant, Starbucks decided to incentivize users with a prize contest. This gave rise to other campaigns such as the Christmas #RedCupArt in 2016.
A final example of clever use of UGC comes from the KFC chain which, after months of silence due to the pandemic, announced its return in a TV advert showing users' funny attempts to cook the same foods offered in their restaurants at home, encouraging them to return to their fast-food restaurants.
Some risks of using UGC
One of the first problems that arise in this context concerns the question of whether the user-generated content is really in line with the company's values and image: how can the brand be assured that the content is original, owned by the user and not covered by copyright? Furthermore, how can the brand be protected from any subsequent claims? These critical issues can be avoided by studying a good, broad strategy and by having a specific policy for the use of UGC.
Furthermore, the possibility of freely contributing to information and art through a cultural production that proceeds "from below", reducing the distance between professionals and amateurs, could cause a "cultural flattening" (as argued by the scholar Andrew Keen), polarization of conversations and reproduction of class differences related to the means of appropriation of information and knowledge (Geert Lovink). The answer lies in any case in the responsibility for the use of tools by those who produce them first and foremost, therefore the users themselves, but also by those who hope for their use, such as platforms and all organizations, including companies, that include them in their communication and marketing strategies.
Another strategy that uses jordan cell phone number list UGC is to ask your audience to tell a story, your brand story; alternatively, you can run contests that end up with a new logo or a new visual identity or new ideas for a commercial: Starbucks' "White Cup Contest" in April 2014, for example, was aimed at redesigning the logo on the brand's white cup. Launching the hashtag #WhiteCupContest, Starbucks invited customers to send photos of their hand-decorated white cups of the brand, with the chance to win a $300 gift card and their drawing as the design of a limited-edition Starbucks cup. Since the effort required to create the content was not insignificant, Starbucks decided to incentivize users with a prize contest. This gave rise to other campaigns such as the Christmas #RedCupArt in 2016.
A final example of clever use of UGC comes from the KFC chain which, after months of silence due to the pandemic, announced its return in a TV advert showing users' funny attempts to cook the same foods offered in their restaurants at home, encouraging them to return to their fast-food restaurants.
Some risks of using UGC
One of the first problems that arise in this context concerns the question of whether the user-generated content is really in line with the company's values and image: how can the brand be assured that the content is original, owned by the user and not covered by copyright? Furthermore, how can the brand be protected from any subsequent claims? These critical issues can be avoided by studying a good, broad strategy and by having a specific policy for the use of UGC.
Furthermore, the possibility of freely contributing to information and art through a cultural production that proceeds "from below", reducing the distance between professionals and amateurs, could cause a "cultural flattening" (as argued by the scholar Andrew Keen), polarization of conversations and reproduction of class differences related to the means of appropriation of information and knowledge (Geert Lovink). The answer lies in any case in the responsibility for the use of tools by those who produce them first and foremost, therefore the users themselves, but also by those who hope for their use, such as platforms and all organizations, including companies, that include them in their communication and marketing strategies.