What Motivates CGM?

Yesterday I led another webinar with select members of the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) about the importance of measuring CGM.  Quite a few media planners were in the audience.  Here's a slide I didn't share but which speaks directly to core motivators and drivers behind CGM behavior.  As marketers, we need to do a better job understanding and managing these drivers. That's the only way we can begin to create meaningful conversations with consumers, which is some respects may be the last hope for advertising. In lookng at the chart, it  should comes as no surprise that all segments want to be entertained, and that creates both opportunities and challenges for marketers.  But is it equally important to know that teens have a significantly higher passion "to be heard" than other segments, or that they  put a very high premium on creating a dialogue with others?  Yes, indeed!  And yet, if this is true, why are brands so hesitant to listen or start a meaningful dialogue.  Abercrombie, for example, is one of the biggest brands in the teen space and yet there's little on their website to suggest they value feedback.  The future of marketing is about managing these disconnects to drive new value.

Comments

[owen mack]

I read your post, checked out the links, and was inspired to create this, my very own piece of CGM:
http://www.obttv.com/pages/az.html
It took about 10 minutes, and I hope it offers A&F customers a true opportunity to go "Back to School" and learn how to decode images.

Of course, it's this kind of stuff that keeps the walls up. The problem with advertising imagery (and corporate messaging in general) is that it always shows the perfect, driven as it is to create an aspirational glow around the product. Now, I don't have a problem with aspirations, but I do think we should be aspiring to things other than perfection, especially when that perfection is so often on the surface only. My hope for marketing is that brands can help us do this...show real people, real places. Show how you develop products. Show your mistakes. Go further: Be honest about where and how your stuff is made. Sweatshops? Product made of Red dye #2 and DDT? Where's the perfection now? It is for this reason that I'm excited about the new transparent world of marketing, and it's to expose this disconnect that alot of CGM appears. All of this is a tall order. For now, I'd be happy if the imagery dealt with the lived experience of consumers. We've gotta start somewhere, it might as well be in our backyards:
http://www.obttv.com/video/chopper3.mov