When Companies Don't Make the Ad: A Multimethod Inquiry Into the Differential Effectiveness of Consumer-Generated Advertising

Abstract

Abstract This four-part multimethod investigation into the under researched yet increasingly prevalent phenomenon of consumer-generated advertising (CGA) establishes a performance advantage over traditional advertising and suggests a rationale for this differential. CGAs benefit from heightened consumer engagement and increased trustworthiness. CGAs also garner perceived quality advantages that are linked to consumers lowering their expectations and using different evaluation criteria to judge the ad. The ad creator—a personalized, identifiable, and relatable entity in the case of CGAs—plays a central role in anchoring and shaping ad reactions. The impact of the “consumer-made” characteristic—the fact that CGAs are made not by companies but by independent people—is powerful and stands strong in the face of commercial motives, and presents paradigmatic implications for advertising practice and research. Acknowledgments Benjamin Lawrence (PhD, Boston University) is an assistant professor, Cornell University, School of Hotel Administration. Susan Fournier (PhD, University of Florida) is a professor, Boston University, School of Management. Frédéric Brunel (PhD, University of Washington) is an associate professor, Boston University, School of Management. Notes 1. A pretest confirmed our assumption that reactions to “no source identified” ads were identical to ads attributed to a company or ad agency. Attributions of who the creator was were identical for these two conditions. 2. “For over 70 years companies have employed advertising agencies to create advertisements for their brands and products. In this survey we will refer to this traditional type of advertising as ‘Company-Created Ads.’” 3. “Thanks to the availability of home computing and video editing tools, consumers have started to create advertisements for brands and products. These advertisements are often shared with other people and posted on social media sites such as YouTube. In this survey we will refer to this new type of advertising as ‘Consumer-Created Ads.’”