A phone camera. Bad lighting. Someone talking about a product from their kitchen table.

It doesn't sound like the kind of content a brand would spend thousands producing. And that's often exactly why it works.

I've noticed this more and more in marketing. I'll scroll past a beautifully produced advert without thinking twice, then stop for a thirty second video from someone I've never heard of because they are showing me what they actually thought about something.

That's user generated content, or UGC.

It is content made by customers or creators around a brand rather than by the brand itself. Reviews, unboxings, demonstrations, testimonials, social posts and videos all fall into the category.

And I don't think UGC works simply because it is cheaper.

It works because it feels like a recommendation rather than an advertisement.

Where did UGC come from?

The behaviour itself isn't new. People have always recommended products, shared opinions and told friends when something was worth buying.

What changed was the internet.

Platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Yelp made it possible for ordinary people to publish those opinions to a much larger audience. You no longer needed a newspaper, publisher or production company to reach people. You could make something on your phone and put it online.

The term user generated content came later. The OECD formally defined UGC in 2007, as social platforms were making this type of content increasingly common.

The behaviour was old. The ability to publish it at scale was new.

Marketing eventually caught up.

What UGC looks like in real life

It is usually much less polished than traditional advertising.

A customer filming a review in their car. Someone opening a delivery at the kitchen table. A person trying a product for the first time and explaining what they think.

Sometimes there isn't even much of a story.

That is part of the appeal.

Nobody has spent hours getting the lighting right. Nobody has rewritten the script twelve times. Nobody from the brand has approved every sentence.

It looks like something a person actually made because it is.

Why people respond to it

There is a fairly simple reason.

We know brands want us to buy things.

So when a company tells me that its product is brilliant, I naturally take that with a little caution. It is the company's job to tell me that.

A customer is different.

If someone is telling me about a product in their own words, particularly when they have nothing obvious to gain from doing so, I am more likely to believe them.

That doesn't mean every review is honest. It doesn't mean every piece of UGC is good. And it certainly doesn't mean traditional advertising has stopped working.

It just means the relationship is different.

There is another person between me and the brand.

Sometimes that's enough to make me listen.

The comments are part of the content

This is one of the things I find most interesting about UGC.

The video itself is only part of what is happening.

Someone asks whether the product actually works. Another person answers. Someone shares their own experience. Someone else says they have been considering buying it.

You end up with an audience doing some of the work that advertising traditionally had to do.

They explain the product to each other.

And sometimes you can see the buying decision happening in real time.

When polished advertising starts to work against you

There was a time when making something look expensive was enough to make it feel valuable.

I'm not sure that's always true anymore.

People have become very good at recognising advertising. We know what a scripted reaction looks like. We know when a supposedly spontaneous video has clearly been planned. We can usually tell when something has been designed to look authentic rather than actually being authentic.

That doesn't mean polished advertising is bad.

There are plenty of situations where great production matters.

But sometimes the rough edges are exactly what make something believable.

A video filmed on someone's kitchen table doesn't have to convince me that it is real.

It obviously is.

Why brands are paying attention

The obvious attraction is cost. A customer creating a video about a product can be considerably cheaper than producing a traditional campaign.

But I think the more interesting benefit is what UGC gives brands that polished advertising can't always create: real experiences, real questions and real reactions.

And when enough customers start talking about a product, something else happens.

The audience starts helping each other.

They answer questions. They share experiences. They recommend the product. They challenge claims.

You have moved from a brand talking at an audience to an audience talking about a brand.

That is much harder to manufacture.

Where brands get it wrong

This is where I think marketers need to be careful.

The moment UGC becomes too controlled, it can lose the quality that made it valuable in the first place.

You can make it easy for customers to create something. You can ask them to share their experience. You can give them information about the product.

But you cannot manufacture genuine enthusiasm.

If someone sounds like they have just been handed a script, people notice.

There is also a legal and ethical side to this.

Paid or gifted content needs to be clearly identified as advertising. In the UK, the ASA has rules around advertising disclosures, while the FTC has similar requirements in the US.

And permission matters too.

Someone posting a video about your product does not automatically give a brand the right to download it, put it on its website or use it in an advertising campaign.

Ask first.

It is simple, but it matters.

Don't try too hard to make something authentic

I think this is probably the biggest lesson for brands.

If you have to work incredibly hard to make a piece of content look spontaneous, it probably isn't spontaneous anymore.

Give people enough freedom to have an actual opinion.

Some of them will say something you didn't expect.

That's not necessarily a problem.

It might be the most useful thing they could have said.

Good UGC isn't supposed to sound like your brand.

It is supposed to sound like your customer.

So, is UGC replacing advertising?

I don't think so.

There is still a place for great creative, strong campaigns and professionally produced advertising.

But the relationship between brands and audiences has changed.

Brands used to have much more control over the conversation. Now customers can publish their own experiences, compare products, challenge claims and influence other people's decisions before the brand has even had a chance to respond.

That's not something marketers can reverse.

The better approach is to understand it and work with it.

Because ultimately, one of the most valuable things a brand can have isn't another perfectly produced advert.

It's a customer who genuinely wants to tell someone else:

“You should try this.”