There are numerous cases of user generated content in the cultural industries today (and several degrees of involvement by users). The widespread availability of the Internet and various social media sites has made collaboration possible and instantaneous for consumers.
This section of the thesis will describe two such ventures of co-creation of video content between consumers and companies.
1a. YouTube and the motion picture: “Life In A day”
The first case we have chosen to work with is a prime example of a company collaborating with its vast group of users. The company in question is YouTube who challenged their users to upload a short video clip describing something that happened in their lives on July 24th 2010.
The underlying idea was for a few creative individuals at the top (producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin McDonald) to gather these clips and edit them into one long movie depicting a typical day on Earth across multiple nations and ethnicities. They called this film project Life In A Day10.
As such the movie project was an experiment to showcase how small the differences between human beings are and encourage greater understanding across nationalities, cultures etc. After the deadline had passed, the two creative leaders Scott and McDonald had received 4500 hours
10 http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday (August 30th 2011)
of footage from 80,000 people from 140 nations11. As Ramaswamy & Gouillart (2010) among others, they believed in the notion that so called “regular“ people had an inherent creative spark in them that could be let out if they were given a chance.
This project resembles what Bilton mentions: That a big part of the creative people at a co-creating company’s work load would consist of filtering consumer’s content (Bilton 2007:155).
This is exactly the case with Life In A Day where the users sent in every scrap of video material they had, with no idea of the shape of the final product or any artistic aspirations. As such, they supplied the raw materials that were fashioned into a creative piece of art by the two directors.
The co-creative nature of this project was also one of its major selling points as the different movie posters read “Ridley Scott and Kevin McDonald together with the YouTube Community”
or “Shot By You”. This shows that they did not hide the fact that the raw material for the movie came from contributors around the world, and that the project was not solely the brain child of the two creative heads, but a collaborative affair. Quite the contrary, they used the co-creative nature of the project as its major selling point.
Success of “Life in a Day”
It is too soon yet to tell with certainty to what degree this specific example of co-creation will be a commercial success, as the film only premiered in July 2011. Interest in the project up to this point paints a picture of a very involved group of consumers that are definitely interested in this new idea of film making. Online forums12 are filled with active consumers sharing their thoughts and excitement about this particular project. Reception at Sundance Film Festival in early 2011 was also very positive and the film holds a very impressive rating of 8.3/10 (from reviewers) at the movie review website imdb.com13. In addition, the film critic of the Washington Post said that "Life in a Day is, without exaggeration, a profound achievement”14. A wealth of other critics
11World invited to watch premiere of life through a lens. The Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/world-invited-to-watch-premiere-of-life-through-a-lens-20110127-1a6xx.html (October 18th 2011)
12 E.g. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_in_a_day_2011/reviews/?type=user (November 19th 2011)
13 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1687247/ (August 30th 2011)
14 Crowdsourcing on a global scale. The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/life-in-a-day,1208303/critic-review.html#reviewNum1/ (August 30th 2011)
has also come forth with their positive reviews of the film. Thus, the artistic success of the film, at this point, seems secured, but this will of course not fund the project in itself. In the end, the company behind the movie will most likely seek a good financial return in order to view the project as successful.
In its first month the film has grossed $207,324 in the US alone15. This figure is not that impressive compared to several of the blockbuster films of summer 2011 (which have received very negative reviews from many critics and movie goers). However, when taking into account the nature and genre (documentary) of the film and the cost of the film’s source material (free) the revenue generated by this film turns out to be highly adequate and will likely soar when the movie premiers in the rest of the world (bearing in mind that the contributors to the film came from multiple nations, not just the US).
The Life In A Day project offered several degrees of consumer participation in order to create an online community and desirable product. Besides the obvious possibility of uploading their own material, people could also sign up to spread the word of the project to friends and acquaintances. This way consumers could contribute to a degree of their own choosing, and YouTube did not exclude consumers that wished to help but did not want to share video material.
Thus, YouTube created customer involvement across more than one customer segment. If Bilton’s notion of sales being “a byproduct of involvement” (Bilton 2007:141) is correct then Life In A Day could and should be a success when it premieres in more and more markets and cinemas across the globe. The direct participants that uploaded video for use in the film will almost certainly also help spread the word and advocate the video, as they feel a sense of pride and ownership via their participation. Ownership that will result in a sense of loyalty towards the product (ibid:154).
There are many insights to be gathered from YouTube’s handling of a co-creation project. The initial signs point towards a film projects that will be both an artistic and financial success. Users were invited to participate without many restraints, which have resulted in a loyal and very interested consumer group.
15 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1687247/ (August 30th 2011)
1b. Sony Music and the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Behind The Mask”
YouTube is not the only creative enterprise to involve consumers to such a high degree in their video creation processes. The record label Sony Music have employed a similar strategy to market one of their “clients”, the late Michael Jackson and his song Behind The Mask from the post-humorously released album entitled “Michael”. The project revolved around creating a new music video for the track, and was launched in February 2011 as a way for fans to pay tribute to the deceased King of Pop16. As was the case with YouTube, consumers were invited to upload their videos, but also given a number of guidelines for their performances in them (sing, dance and clap in specific ways). In the end a director would edit the submissions together into the ultimate fan made tribute to their idol.
The video for Behind The Mask premiered in June of 2011 on YouTube and featured a 100% fan made music video17. In the 1600 clips that compose fans from not only the biggest cities of the world, but also “niche areas” such as the Arctic Circle can be seen dancing, clapping and lip-syncing to the track. The clip is currently under evaluation for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records as the music video with the largest audience of participants.
Bilton said that sales were “a byproduct of involvement” (Bilton 2007: 141) and the album Michael shipped three million units to 31 territories in its first week of release. Since then the album has achieved platinum status in 17 countries18. Compared to his earlier albums, Michael has not sold as well, but the project could still be regarded as somewhat of a success. First of all, the bar for album sales was already set by Michael Jackson himself, so his earlier numbers were hard to live up to. Album sales would still be regarded as a huge success if achieved by any other artist.
But Sony had to face the fact that this was indeed Michael Jackson, and therefore they were disappointed in the album sales. The fan-made video is not necessarily the only reason for the album’s poor performance in the charts though. The fact that it consisted of merely polished demos from a deceased singer could also have played a part.
16 http://www.michaeljackson.com/uk/news/michael-jacksons-ultimate-music-fan-global-mash-launch-online-march-7 (July 15th 2011)
17 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx2ZmhYHxH4&ob=av2e (July 15th 2011)
18 http://www.michaeljackson.com/us/node/1089624 (July 15th 2011)
But there is another reason that this co-creation project should not be viewed as a failure: The whole project was an outright experiment from Sony to make their foray into new territories of online co-creation and subsequent fan engagement.
As the International Marketing Manager from Sony Music said in our interview with him, they wanted to move from being innovators in the creation of music videos when Michael Jackson was alive, to being innovative in the field of fan engagement and new ways of making music videos. This way the project was an artistic success, and also potentially a financial success in the long run, as Sony are now in contact with 4500 people interested in co-creating videos and experiences in the future.
Sony can learn a lot from this foray into co-creation. First of all, they have discovered a huge amount of consumers interested in co-creation that they can cooperate with on future projects.
They are now in direct contact with these via e-mail and can also market other products to them.
The music video that was born from this project created a lot of buzz around Michael Jackson after his death and has currently been viewed more than 4.1 million times on YouTube19.