In the 20th century, it was said that, “Content is king.”  Consumers and marketing professionals alike have observed this after years and years of experience with traditional media outlets such as television and print.  Marketing professionals know their message will reach wider, larger audiences when bundled with content that is in high demand by a large and varied group of consumers such as an episode of ABC’s Lost or an issue of the New York Times.  Since there’s good marketing money to be made by producing content that reaches a wide audience, an impetus to increase the quality and value of content was placed on content producers.  The result is (arguably) better television programming, better magazines, and better news papers.  The consumer wins in this situation at the cost of seeing some marketing materials along the way.  Thankfully, humanity didn’t forget who the King was when the 21st century dawned on mankind and ushered with it the internet as a ubiquitous part of our lives!  Competition is so fierce for a consumer’s attention that quality content has become a baseline starting point, and not just something to separate the NBC’s from the CBS’s.  The internet can be like a full cable package:  5,000,000,000,000 channels and nothing’s on.  

Join Jeremy Kolonay and Michael Wunsch as they discuss the technical implications of user-generated content campaigns.

 LeapCast LFI University Feb 8 2008: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As Director of Creative Services here at LeapFrog Interactive, I’ve gotten the opportunity to work on several fun and exciting interactive contest campaigns for our clients over the years. In my experience, these kinds of promotions can net great results for businesses. One particular challenge that affects me and my team in Creative Services is maintaining brand compliance on an interactive contest campaign. It’s our responsibility to ensure that if we have to add images, audio or video content that doesn’t currently exist in the client’s digital asset library, those files are always 100% consistent with their brand style.

That’s where the brand personality approach really pays off. If you understand the brand as a three-dimensional persona, you have the depth of understanding to extend the digital assets as needed without going off-brand. Sometimes, you have to appeal to the consumer represented by that brand personality, rather than what the client’s personal preference would be, but if they agree that it fits the brand personality, then that’s the direction you take. It adds a more objective layer and guideline to the subjective design process.

User experience is another area for concern in interactive contest creative development. Any design element that causes friction or prevents the user from submitting their email address is a roadblock. In addition to interfering with building the consumer database, it also represents a gap in user experience. If the user didn’t complete the action we expected it means we need to look at the design again, figure out why, and determine what changes to make.

Finally, it’s important to know how far to push the overt brand elements on a contest site. Applying the brand style needs a certain level of subtlety and sophistication. If you push the direct branding too hard, it becomes intrusive to the user experience. But it needs to be obvious enough that users remember not just that it was a fun contest, but a contest presented by your client’s brand. Striking the right balance can be tough, but it’s important not to go overboard in either direction/