User-generated-content: Concept, typology, and marketing outcomes

Abstract

User-generated-content, also called user-generated-media, user-created-content, and consumer-generatedcontent, refers to all types of content, like pictures, videos, or posts, created by consumers and delivered through online platforms like social media. User-generated content is gaining momentum as a marketing communication tool in the form of contests (e.g., create-your-own advertisements, branded storytelling, or branded interactive applications). By allowing consumers to become prosumers and creating or co-creating brand messages, advertisers increase consumers´ exposure to and involvement with brand communications, which results in a greater level of brand engagement. This chapter analyzes the effects of prosumers’ actions on marketing communications using the uses and gratifications theory approach. Two main types of advertising content created by prosumers, spontaneous content and marketing-oriented content, are identified. Five marketing communication outcomes of user-generated-content (credibility, message distortion, loss of control on the message valence, involvement with the message, and virality) are also examined. Implications for practitioners are also discussed.