There’s been much written on the wonders of user generated content over the last few years. The idea is that user generated content is imperative in building a successful community, a community who decides for themselves what is quality content and what is not. But what happens when users start to create content that doesn’t reflect well on companies? We take a look at examples of when UGC backfired.

Chevrolet

A campaign by car manufacturer, Chevrolet, allowed people to create their own ads by inserting text into existing video clips. The campaign backfired when the ads highlighted just how much petrol is needed to run the cars.

Nike

For $50, Nike let its customers personalize their trainers with their own word or phrase. Unfortunately for Nike, Jonah Peretti filled out the form and asked for the word “sweatshop” to be stitched onto his shoes. You can read some of the entertaining email exchanges here.

Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney decided to hold a contest for his supporters to create a television ad that would air in New Hampshire. A democratic strategist then released his own video making fun of Romney. The video ended up with more page views than all of the official finalists for the competition combined.

Sky News

When Sky News asked viewers to send in their pictures of storms that raged through Britain recently, they probably didn’t expect members of the Football365.com (NSFW) forums to send in stills from the movie, “The Day After Tomorrow” or pictures of athlete, Kris Akabusi. Fortunately, Private Eye magazine picked up on the story. From Private Eye:

By 11.30am on Tuesday, despite a solemn promise that “your photo will be checked by moderators before it can be displayed”, the 408 photographs in Sky’s “Wild Weather” gallery included a shot of a young Norman Wisdom dismayed by a car crushed by a tree; footballer Carlos Valderama in flooded New Orleans captioned “it’s windy here in Widnes”; a still from environmental disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow captioned “Whitley Bay”; a suspicious number of scenes of destruction featuring either teddy bears or the athlete and television presenter Kris Akabusi; and several shots of fallen trees and flooded streets in which missing toddler Madeleine McCann was clearly visible in the background.

Sadly the fun was terminated after a mere 24 hours when moderators caught on and deleted all the images.

This article in the New York Times highlights just how expensive it can be to produce user generated content. When should a company encourage user generated content and when should they use more traditional methods of advertising and marketing? Leave your comments below.