#Crowdsourcing
Posted by Dan | Filed under Blog, Talk, Thinking
I have seen a lot of hype lately about Crowdsourcing, why so much? Do we think it is a good thing? Quite a few people have started talking and tweeting about this trending topic (so to speak), with lots of different views. I have a summary of some thoughts and opinions below…
We came across a few websites pushing this idea…
Idea Bounty is a website that allows clients to ask the world for creative ideas in exchange for a reward, or Bounty. The clients review the submissions and select the best Idea as the Bounty winner. Clients can only use Ideas that they pay the creative a Bounty for.
99designs is a disruptive startup which connects passionate designers from around the globe with savvy clients who need design projects completed in a timely fashion without the usual risk or cost associated with professional design.
I sent the 99designs website onto a friend of mine and this was his response (I have edited out the swearing):
I cheapens the whole design process and opens up the industry to a downward spiral that can only result with designers fighting against each other over cost/pricing rather than quality of concept and execution it will be like gladiators in the coliseum.
AND you give away all copyright for the work, given that the average pay from the site is $100-$600 they can suck my ####!!! – if I designed a logo for example a big bank and they had branches all over the world, i would expect to get a minimum of £5,000-£10,000 for complete copyright hand over and that is probably too cheap.
Sorry to rant but that is exactly the kind of thing I am against. It’s on par with free pitching. Crowdsourcing is a cheap way for c###s that dont wana pay for REAL quality, they just want something nice ‘n’ pretty for the least amount of money.
Bad days are just around the corner if sites like this start popping up everywhere.
This, as I am sure you have worked out, is a response from a designer. I can see his point here, although I don’t see free pitching as an issue. Going off topic for a second, in my opinion if you don’t get paid to pitch it ensures the agency presents their best work possible. It is a driver.
Back in the room… The same sort of POV as the above was posted on the blog of Amelia Torode, a planner in London. In the first paragraph we see Amelia state that it ‘cheapens outsourcing‘. Although this blog post was more of a discussion piece I think there are a few good points there. Do we need the ad agency if 1000’s of out-of-work creatives (assumption, I know) will deliver ideas for a lot less money?
I am a firm believer that good ideas can come from anyone… I also don’t think that ‘the creatives’ are the only source of these… But on that note, you do either have it or you don’t. Again I digress…
I guess we then touch upon economics to address another issue… If companies (or people, in this case) are competing against a fierce number of competitors, then more often than not the product or service comes down to price. Is this a problem or an advantage of Crowdsourcing? I think it depends on which side of the boardroom table you sit on.
We may be witnessing a revolution? A new ad agency has started up in the US called Victors & Spoils (wow, they have been getting a lot of press lately… first mover advantage?):
We are Victors & Spoils and this is what we do. As the world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles, it’s our goal to provide businesses with a better way to solve their marketing, advertising and product-design problems by engaging the world’s most talented creatives.
Why are we doing this? The way we see it, companies need an alternative to both current ad agencies as well as current crowdsourcing platforms. One that offers the strategic direction, engagement and relationship management that agencies deliver today, but one that also delivers the engagement, cultural relevance, results and return on investment that crowdsourcing {if managed and directed well} can deliver.
The old saying ‘two heads are better than one’ could be used as a analogy to describe Crowdsourcing, but does it matter who these heads are? On the one hand you have a team that works in an ad agency, doing it everyday, on the pulse with new technology (most are anyway), seasoned in developing creative ideas to meet a clients brief. Then you have potentially 1000’s of minds working away on your brief simultaneously – surely a few must be good ideas?
I guess we are assuming here that the people that partake in Crowdsourcing are not as experienced in meeting client briefs from a creative and strategic perspective.
The way I see it is as follows:
Go to an ad agency and you are pretty much guaranteed a solution that is based on thorough thinking about your brand/product. Agencies have planners that work with creatives for a reason; to ensure the quality of work that comes out meets the clients requirements. All good agencies will propose ideas that the believe (or intuitively know) will work.
The Crowdsource model is more of a gamble. You fire it out there, get loads back, then hope something will stick. Some will stick and could even be great, potentially the best marketing ideas to be developed… but are clients willing to take this risk, especially in times like these? Or even when things are good?
This post is lacking the clients view on this, so if you do work client side, please feel free to let us know your thoughts.
I am all about new developments, new technology and new thinking. Maybe I could even be accused of being resistant to change. Is this a good idea though? Clients use ad agencies as they are experts, can 1000’s of people that are not technically experts in a subject do better than a team of, say, 10 experts?
Tags: 99designs, crowdsource, crowdsourcing, Idea Bounty
2 Responses to “#Crowdsourcing”
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