UGC Can Reinforce Existing Brand Messages? Yes, Says Dove

According to Collective Intellect, which tracked brand lift for advertisers before and after the Academy Awards, Dove outdid 10 other major advertisers, elevating its position 500 percent with pre-show buzz.

Consistency, and refining an old model, were probably key. Dove rehashed last year's campaign strategy: appealing to audience members to produce and rate ads for its Cream Oil product. The winner was a woman named Celeste Wouden, whose spot lacks the slapstick, paging-Cartoon-Network! feel we've come to expect from UGC efforts. In fact, it looks like a stock Dove commercial (and for WAY less money).

Watch the ad at DoveCreamOil.com. Runners-up can be seen in the gallery.

This suggests, at least to us, that user-generated content can effectively supplement a broader ad campaign (as opposed to replacing one entirely). And instead of using UGC to try appealing to a YouTube audience (Pizza Pops comes to mind), Dove instead encouraged audience members to meet its standards and reinforce its own cultivated brand message. Impressive.

Overall discussion of the Academy Awards was negative, says Collective Intellect, with just 32 million viewers.