So Whaddya Think? Consumers Create Ads and Other Consumers Critique Them Burçak Ertimur a, ⁎ & Mary C. Gilly b a Silberman College of Business, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ 07666, USA b The Paul Merage School of Business, SB 401, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA Available online 3 December 2011 Abstract With the availability of online creative tools, consumers create ad-like communications on their own or in response to company contests. These consumer-generated ads (CGA) are like word-of-mouth (WOM) in that they are consumer-to-consumer communications, yet they have the look and feel of traditional advertising. We examine consumer responses to both contest and unsolicited CGA and company ads using data gathered from consumers via netnography and depth interviews. Content analysis is used to compare the three ad types and reveals that the contest rules frame CGA so that they resemble company ads while unsolicited CGA differ from both ad types. Findings show that consumers respond to both types of CGA by engaging with the ad rather than the brand, much like an ad critic, while company ads elicit brand associations. Unsolicited CGA are seen as authentic, but not credible, while contest ads are seen as credible, but not authentic, revealing a boundary condition to the conventional view that authenticity leads to credibility. © 2011 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Consumer-generated advertising; User-generated content; Credibility; Authenticity; Word-of-mouth communications Introduction With the availability of online creative tools, consumers create ad-like communications on their own or in response to company contests. These consumer-generated ads (CGA) are like word-of- mouth (WOM) in that they are consumer-to-consumer communi- cations, yet they have the look and feel of traditional advertising. We examine consumer responses to both contest and unsolicited CGA and company ads using data gathered from consumers via netnography and depth interviews. Content analysis is used to compare the three ad types and reveals that the contest rules frame CGA so that they resemble company ads while unsolicited CGA differ from both ad types. Findings show that consumers re- spond to both types of CGA by engaging with the ad rather than the brand, much like an ad critic, while company ads elicit brand associations. Unsolicited CGA are seen as authentic, but not cred- ible, while contest ads are seen as credible, but not authentic, revealing a boundary condition to the conventional view that au- thenticity leads to credibility. In 2004, a vocational school teacher named George Masters showcased the 60-second animated ad he had created for the iPod Mini by uploading it to his personal Web site. The video could have easily been mistaken for an ad produced by Apple. The unsolicited ad caught the attention of fans, blog- gers, and marketers, and was viewed more than 500,000 times within a month (McConnell and Huba 2007). In 2007, the NFL, General Motors-Chevrolet, Bayer-Alka Seltzer, Unilever-Dove and PepsiCo-Doritos invited consumers to create ads for their products to be aired during the Super Bowl and the Oscars. The success and the buzz generated by some of these ads have fueled many other companies to initiate similar ad contests. With the availability of digital media technology and the emergence of Web-based publishing and networking platforms, ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: bertimur@fdu.edu (B. Ertimur), mcgilly@uci.edu (M.C. Gilly). 1094-9968/$ -see front matter © 2011 Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2011.10.002 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of Interactive Marketing 26 (2012) 115 – 130 www.elsevier.com/locate/intmar