IAB and UGC Morning Keynote

On June 4th, I attended the IAB User Generated Content and Social Networking Leadership Seminar. I’m going to be writing up the sessions over the next week or so.

The first keynote was from Ian Schafer from Deep Focus and Nevin Shalit from New line Cinema, who discussed the use of interactive marketing in developing a campaign for Pan’s Labyrinth, throught their MySpace page. They made the following key points.

UGC and social networking have always been there, we now just have the tools to develop more and spread it faster. They themselves are not fads, but the commercialisation and co-opting of social networks could be seen as a recent fad. Through community and technology, you have the opportunity for more participation and more content.
Social network companies have a hard time deciding whether they are technology or media companies (so they can often do both badly I guess).
To make the most of the space, advertisers should strive in 4 areas. Creative – attractive, functional, practical and entertaining. Media – not just traditional ads but create and experience and drive to it. Publicity – getting the word and links out there. CRM – establishing a community without participating in it is like opening a bar without staff. it won’t work, you need to be in there and create value exchange.
For Pan’s Labyrinth, they focused on fantasy, beauty and community. The director himself is extremely active on the web, in forums, through email so there was already a dedicated online fanbase. The MySpace page was the main focus of the activity around the film and they regard it as a success. For the film profile, they had 98% positive comments, which is the highest rating they have seen.
They made sure there were lots of things for users to grab and take, with downloads, embeds, MySpace code, images and all the stuff that people can take to demonstrate their affiliation. They were even able to send out the complete soundtrack to people, to allow it to be streamed.
The UGC element came through an interactive sketchbook. Guillermo del Toro used a sketch book throughout the process, taking it to interviews etc. This was scanned and presented online; fans were invited to create their own sketches for the book. They had 450 entries; originally there were meant to be 5 winners but in the end del Toro picked 11 as he could not choose between them.
research showed that the most influential driver to the film was the web, with over 50% of those polled on exits saying the web, through the site or other SN aspects, was critical in leading them to watch the film.
Online responses and requests were also used to shape the content, eg adding the ability to embed the sketchbooks.
Advice for those looking to do something similar includes opening up the ecosystem, making sure it is easy to use and create, ensuring you are doing the correct monetisation and targeting – and getting the brands involved. Hollywood is good at this, why aren’t the brands.

At this point it was opened to questions; only three were asked but, not surprisingly, they were 3 common ones.

How do you get people to the site? The paid media only got <1% clickthrough, needed for awareness but not biggest direct driver. You need online PR, effective networking, education, the ability to let the conversation happen and getting users talking to each other as soon as you can. You can use the niches, look for newsworthy stuff or technical improvements and let those communities know as well.
What about IP issues? This one was not really answered (the speakers were neither lawyers nor the creators).
How do you choose the tactics? This is on a case by case basis, you have to make sure the property will be received favourable and is suitable for what you are going to be doing.

Overall, a good presentation and a good case study,. For this film, SN and UGC worked well and harder than it normally does for a ‘big’ film. This was a niche target that suited the tactics.