No Man’s Blog

When Time magazine chose YOU as 2006 person of the year, it felt right (to me). It struck a cord with most of us and stirred a fertile debate around the blogosphere as well as over traditional media. It gave the social-technological-cultural revolution and the changes in balance of power of the past years the establishment stamp. Now my mother knows what a blog is and indeed my father and his mates are active distributes of viral content.

But AdAge choice of The Consumer as the ad agency of the year looks really lame to me. Perhaps if they’d done it before Times it wouldn’t have felt so hackneyed and as an over-stretched gimmick. After all ordinary people have done quite amazing stuff this year, notably the mentos-diet coke experiment and some great apple spoofs. But to crown these amature creatives as the ad agency of the year is wrong.

First, let’s not forget that 99% of user generated  content is quite rubish. It’s like giving The Consumer the designer of the year for a couple of people who did a really good DIY home renovation. Whats next? YOU as the hairdresser of the year if you blow dried your missus really well? Best
pornographer of the year if you made a good homemade? Best policeman of
the year if you kicked a hoody’s ass for trying to steal a bicycle?

But this choice is wrong mostly because it will strengthen an already played out fad.  Brands and marketers already overuse and misuse the idea of user generated content. They saw an emerging trend that it’s power lies is in it’s spontaneity and ‘grassrootsness vitality’ and most importantly it’s independence and they are going to kill it softly. Instead of using the idea of loosing control over your brand strategically, first and foremost for driving internal cultural change, they use it tactically (and forcefully) to make consumers do the job for them and that will either backlash of simply bore people away.

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