Pretty girls don’t ride the subway

You know how much we love user generated content, and how much it is changing marketing.

UGC sets new problems for brands: how to control what consumers will say under my name? how to react to abuses?

In 2004, an unknown NYC traveler managed to change an electronic sign to read: Pretty girls don’t ride the subway. An early attempt to engage in conversation? It took a few hours before the sign was actually unplugged and this message lost.

South California saw a more obvious form of abuse when a “graffiti artist” somehow managed to set his own trademark imagery on huge digital highway billboards (see above).

Those offline examples, remind us that abuses are not new, and not specific to the web; but the growing importance of Internet and the fast spreading of information online can turn the work of a simple graffiti artist into a marketing crisis.

How many brands have really opened the door to UGC on their website? How do they control it?
How much risks is your brand ready to take in order to enjoy the benefits of user generated content?