Advertising boss wary of user-generated content

By Adam Pasick

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Advertisers trying to mirror YouTube's success by asking consumers to contribute ideas may be giving up too much control, one of the industry's best-known executives said on Thursday.

"I don't believe in it too much, to be honest," said Jean-Marie Dru, worldwide chief executive of Omnicom Group Inc.'s (OMC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) TBWA"Chiat"Day agency, whose clients include Sony Corp. (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. (7201.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

"I don't think you can have consumers telling you what you should do. We believe our best campaigns have been done with our clients, not our consumers."

Coca-Cola Co. (KO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), General Motors Corp. (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and PepsiCo Inc.'s (PEP.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Frito-Lay have all experimented with letting the public submit content and culling the best as on-air commercials, a business model known as "crowd-sourcing."

Prominent examples include a home-made video about the explosive combination of Diet Coke and Mentos, and a Web site created by GM's Chevrolet where users added their own captions to video ads for its Tahoe SUV.

Despite Dru's doubts, the London branch of TBWA"Chiat"Day has created a project called "The Big What Adventure," which it calls "an experiment in open source creativity." The public is invited to send in ideas for ad campaigns and branding events for clients including Apple and Nissan.

However cutting-edge the idea of crowd-sourcing may be, companies that tap the public for content risk losing control of the message.

Among 30,000 entries for the Tahoe ad, one contribution -- presumably from someone concerned about global warming -- was a added the caption "Enjoy the Longer Summers," according to a report in Wired magazine.

Dru, whose agency promises to "create disruptive ideas" for its clients, said crowd-sourcing "is not the kind of disruption we're looking for."

Dru was famously recruited by French financier Vincent Bollore to run ad company Havas (EURC.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) in 2005, but declined after a lobbying campaign by TBWA"Chiat"Day staff to keep him.

Asked about Bollore's performance as chairman of the mid-sized ad firm, Dru said: "There is a job to be done, and since he is a very smart man I think he understands the issues. Working against him, he has little knowledge of our business. In his favor, he's got time ... he can make mistakes, he can learn."

(For more coverage of the Reuters Media Summit, please see our MediaFile blog at blogs.reuters.com/mediafile)