In this episode of Add To Cart, we are joined by Dave Hack and George Brown, co founders at Creator Flow.
Creator Flow is a platform that connects brands with UGC-style Ad Creators. The founders saw a gap between those that have a need for social media ad content to be made and those with the talent, experience and availability to make it. They’ve filled their books with high quality Australian creators and are working with some pretty impressive clients – outfits like Shark Ninja, Who Gives A Crap and The Oodie. Today, Dave and George get into the detail of exactly what UGC is and how it differs from influencer content. They share wisdom from both sides of the equation – how to produce great content and the must haves when briefing for UGC. We also get their predictions on where we’re going to see most future disruption in this space.
“The freedom that is created by using creator made UGC is that they’re more like paid actors than they are influencers or personalities”
Dave Hack
Content creators vs influencers
“When UGC first was dreamt of, it was really around the hope that real customers would make great content that we can use as a brand. And obviously that stuff’s the best, it’s the rawest, the most true, but most customers aren’t creators. So to actually get content that is usable and reliable when you need it is, you know, it’s too hard.
So then brands are like, hey, let’s try influencers. They’re great at making content. But the problem with a lot of influencers is they believe they’re famous. So they wanna charge rates and use like a legal framework, usage rights to kind of earn more from the process and most brands were finding it too costly. But also, this content is so disposable, like ad fatigue is when everyone that you can target has seen it already and they’re no longer responding to the ad. So you just need to keep refreshing the view and the voice of whatever the message is you’re communicating.
And so that’s kind of where the thought to make creator made content, which gives 100% control to the brand, of the brief, of the creative, of the distribution. Our creators are effectively like freelance creatives, as opposed to trying to be, you know, famous influencers. They’re not trying to look after their audience or anything like that. They’re not conflicted in their brief.”
How to brief for short form UGC
“Even before you start the brief, our key tips would just be have a really good strategy. It’s always important to remember that the video is not a strategy, it’s just a tool. So have a great strategy, like what, who are you trying to reach? What stage on their journey are they? Like whereabouts in your funnel is this piece of content going to be?
Then also have a great understanding of, once you actually have this content, what you’re going to do with it before you make it. So having a loop to some kind of performance data is really essential to having success with UGC. And then I guess when it does come to having your brief, we always would recommend just having one clear message that you’re trying to communicate per video…what’s the one thing you wanna highlight?
The last thing would be that when you do brief a creator, you ask them to do a few extra hooks for you. So alternate intros and different variations you can try.”
Trust the creator
“I think that’s the big opportunity for this type of low cost creative for this whole UGC space is it gives you the ability to lean on really talented creators to come up with a voicing of a script that is going to resonate and that also comes across super organic.
So when a brand is at the early stage of that journey, we’re always encouraging them to give the creator as much kind of creative licence to come up with their own script and experiment with that. And then, you know, get a bunch of different versions of an idea or an angle made, and then test that to work out what messages are resonating with the target audience you’re trying to reach. And then as you go down that process, and as each round comes back, you have the kind of the ability to make decisions about what particular lines or messages as you build an ad narrative script are working.
We think the biggest mistake that a lot of clients make is that in their very first go, they’re just trying to jam all of these kinds of advertising messages into something that’s meant to get past people’s ad filters. And that’s the other opportunity of UGC is the whole point is to trick people in some ways to be like, is this someone I know? And by the time they work out, nah, this is just a random, they’ve already been given a great message about the product, So, we’re always recommending to lean on the creativity of these talented creators to communicate for you.”
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