UGC (User-Generated Content)
Definition
UGC is content created by customers or paid creators rather than a brand's studio, valued in paid media because it reads as authentic and typically outperforms polished brand assets on cold audiences.
The term now covers two different things: genuine unpaid customer content, and commissioned creator content produced in a UGC style for use in ads. The second is far more common in performance marketing, and it is advertising — it requires disclosure and proper usage rights.
Its advantage is in the first two seconds, where a phone-shot vertical video defeats a produced ad on native feeds. Its weakness is fatigue: UGC ages faster than brand creative, so it demands a production pipeline rather than a one-off shoot.
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