Speaker Series: Colin Decker

This week's speaker was Colin Decker, Creative Director of CurrentTV.

CurrentTV is a television channel that is filled with User Generated Content. He started off the lecture by giving several acronyms for user generated content, pointing out that it was still a new enough idea that no one term had been adopted. For example:

UGC - user generated content
CGC - consumer generated content
UGV - user generated video
VC2 - viewer created content

Throughout his presentation, Decker's focus was on engagement. He pointed out that the 30 second TV spot is a passive experience, while the web is a two way street. You are engaged, you are watching it, and you probably went and found it yourself. Decker stated that at this point, it looks like engaging an audience is the future of marketing, advertising, and probably all media.

Instead of speaking only about currentTV, Decker also brought other UGC ideas into the mix. He talked about the Converse Gallery (www.conversegallery.com), the Doritos Superbowl Ad and the Chevy Tahoe Campaign as three examples of the UGC phenomenon. Everybody is hanging their hat on UGC without knowing why. At this point, Decker said that marketers and advertisers understand that they have to engage consumers, but they don't quite know how. Is the point to engage online, or is the point to give consumers control? The result, for companies that don't know, is that the UGC commercials that they end up posting are the ones that look just like professional commericals, instead of the ones that celebrate being homemade, different, and of-the-people. There are, after all, a lot of out of work DPs who have access to the kinds of equiptment that they need to make a professional spot.

On Current TV, content is uploaded and voted on by online users. Segments generally run between 3 and 7 minutes, and the network will show anything other than scripted television. There are no 30 minute shows, so they call their mini-segments 'pods'. There is no universal clock / schedule for the channel, and Neilsen has no idea how to rate them. At the moment, CurrentTV consists of 30% user voted content, and 30% producer generated content ... he didn't touch on the last 40%.

Most interestingly to me, the channel includes viewer created advertising messages (VCAM). When viewers log onto the CurrentTV website (www.current.tv) they can see assignments from specific sponsors of the channel (Sony, L'Oreal, etc.) and make their own advertisements for those products. If chosen for the network, the creater receives $1000. In Decker's mind, CurrentTV mergers authentic brands with advertisers. It is a network focused on two way communication. He summed up this part of his speech with the words "real real is in."

Decker then talked about agencies and brands, saying that when it came to UGC, there were two types:
1. the "this is all crap / fad" type
2. the "this is a new language to reach people with" type
He calmed our ad-school fears by noting that VCAM will not replace agencies. Instead, it is another tool.

In speaking about the CurrentTV network, Decker pointed out that it is an online community, not an online contest. YouTube, he said, is about broadcasting yourself. They have done much to get people actively interested in the idea of creating and watching UGC. CurrentTV, however, is for broadcasting yourself if you have something to say.

Check it out at www.current.tv or on your television if you have cable.