Crowdsourcing: Getting others to do your work for you
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an alien researcher with SETI or an investigative reporter for The Guardian in the UK? Well, now is your chance. Both are turning to the public for help with a project - one that is better performed by thousands of amateurs rather than a handful of experts. This is part of a growing trend by companies of reaching out to the masses for help with their projects and for advice about their products and services. It is also something that marketers should start thinking about for their own business.
What is Crowdsourcing?
Crowdsourcing means outsourcing tasks that are traditionally performed by employees to a group of people or community through an “open call.” It is using the collective intelligence of many to either find the best solution to a problem or help perform tasks that would be overwhelming for a handful of people. A perfect example of crowdsourcing comes from the source of this definition, Wikipedia. Thousands of volunteers collaborated to produce over 14 million articles – and turned the encyclopedia market on its head in the process.
As a marketer, how can I benefit from it?
Generally speaking, there are three areas where crowdsourcing can benefit marketers: developing ideas for new or existing products, engaging consumers with an activity related to the brand, and generating creative ideas for advertising.
Developing ideas for new or existing products
Think of this as a modern day suggestion box. Consumers tell the brand what they can improve upon or what new products or services they should offer. The ideas are then voted on by consumers and the most popular ones are implemented by the company. The most successful examples of this type of crowdsourcing are Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea. Both of these sites let users make product/service suggestions, rate other people’s suggestions, and track the implementation of the most popular ideas. They’ve also both been quite successful. My Starbucks Idea has had over 180,000 registered users, 80,000 ideas submitted, and 50 of those ideas implemented in-store and Dell’s Ideastorm has had over 130,000 votes cast on more than 2,500 ideas.
Engaging consumers with an activity related to the brand
Instead of using the crowd to improve a company’s product or service, some brands are using it simply as a way to engage consumers and make them feel more connected to the brand. One recent example is Pepsi’s Refresh Project. Pepsi is allowing consumers to submit and vote on ideas that will make a positive impact in their community. Pepsi is awarding more than $20 million this year to fund the best ideas that will “refresh the world.” Chase Bank ran a similar program. They teamed with facebook to let users decide which charities will receive money from the Chase’s corporate philanthropy fund.
Generating creative ideas for advertising
If you’ve had enough of working with ad agencies, then this option might be for you. In this type of crowdsourcing, you bypass your ad agency and have consumers create your ads. This usually takes the form of an open competition where the winner(s) gets a cash award for either generating the concept of the ad or actually developing the completed ad. Doritos has been successfully running a Super Bowl Ad competition for years. Their crowdsourced ads consistently rank in the top five of Super Bowl ad polls and have earned the creators up to $1 million in bonus money for their stellar in-market performance. If you are apprehensive about the time and effort required to create a platform to run a crowdsourced project, don’t worry. There are companies who specialize in setting up these types of campaigns that can get you running in no time. Companies such as crowdSPRING and Idea Bounty will run the campaign right from their website and they generally receive more than 100 entries per campaign.
Go ahead, give it a try
The next time you have a project that you think could benefit from some fresh ideas, consider crowdsourcing. The collective intelligence of the masses may just bring you a great product idea or creative concept that you never would have discovered on your own.
- John Boese
What is Crowdsourcing?Crowdsourcing means outsourcing tasks that are traditionally performed by employees to a group of people or community through an “open call.” It is using the collective intelligence of many to either find the best solution to a problem or help perform tasks that would be overwhelming for a handful of people. A perfect example of crowdsourcing comes from the source of this definition, Wikipedia. Thousands of volunteers collaborated to produce over 14 million articles – and turned the encyclopedia market on its head in the process.
As a marketer, how can I benefit from it?
Generally speaking, there are three areas where crowdsourcing can benefit marketers: developing ideas for new or existing products, engaging consumers with an activity related to the brand, and generating creative ideas for advertising.
Developing ideas for new or existing products
Think of this as a modern day suggestion box. Consumers tell the brand what they can improve upon or what new products or services they should offer. The ideas are then voted on by consumers and the most popular ones are implemented by the company. The most successful examples of this type of crowdsourcing are Dell’s IdeaStorm and Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea. Both of these sites let users make product/service suggestions, rate other people’s suggestions, and track the implementation of the most popular ideas. They’ve also both been quite successful. My Starbucks Idea has had over 180,000 registered users, 80,000 ideas submitted, and 50 of those ideas implemented in-store and Dell’s Ideastorm has had over 130,000 votes cast on more than 2,500 ideas.
Engaging consumers with an activity related to the brand
Instead of using the crowd to improve a company’s product or service, some brands are using it simply as a way to engage consumers and make them feel more connected to the brand. One recent example is Pepsi’s Refresh Project. Pepsi is allowing consumers to submit and vote on ideas that will make a positive impact in their community. Pepsi is awarding more than $20 million this year to fund the best ideas that will “refresh the world.” Chase Bank ran a similar program. They teamed with facebook to let users decide which charities will receive money from the Chase’s corporate philanthropy fund.
Generating creative ideas for advertising
If you’ve had enough of working with ad agencies, then this option might be for you. In this type of crowdsourcing, you bypass your ad agency and have consumers create your ads. This usually takes the form of an open competition where the winner(s) gets a cash award for either generating the concept of the ad or actually developing the completed ad. Doritos has been successfully running a Super Bowl Ad competition for years. Their crowdsourced ads consistently rank in the top five of Super Bowl ad polls and have earned the creators up to $1 million in bonus money for their stellar in-market performance. If you are apprehensive about the time and effort required to create a platform to run a crowdsourced project, don’t worry. There are companies who specialize in setting up these types of campaigns that can get you running in no time. Companies such as crowdSPRING and Idea Bounty will run the campaign right from their website and they generally receive more than 100 entries per campaign.
Go ahead, give it a try
The next time you have a project that you think could benefit from some fresh ideas, consider crowdsourcing. The collective intelligence of the masses may just bring you a great product idea or creative concept that you never would have discovered on your own.
- John Boese
I’m curious if you would be at all concerned about handing over marketing efforts to people that may or may not have marketing experience or expertise? The “crowd” may or may not come up with a great marketing idea but how would a business know which ideas have merit and which would be the right direction for their company without consulting with a marketing professional? Yes, the CEO knows his/her business better than anyone else, but they may not know marketing. This is why there are professionals, right? Your thoughts?
Inspiring to see this post on an agency blog. Zooppa.com is a platform for crowdsourcing video, design and banner advertisements with a built-in community of 56,000 and growing.
We don’t see ourselves as a bypass to the traditional agency route though, we’re actually more inclined to partner with an agency to tie into existing strategy as a turn-key engagement marketing platform as well as a source of creative ideas and content for advertising.
@Adam
Adam, I would definitely have concerns about handing over all marketing decisions to the crowd. I agree with you - companies still need experts to develop their marketing strategy and make sure decisions align with their marketing goals. Crowdsourcing can be helpful in generating new product ideas or creating ads, but an experienced marketer is necessary to choose which ideas are a good fit with the brand and make the most business sense. If it were solely up to consumers, they would probably lower the price of every product and run ads that were hilarious but had nothing to do with the brand.
Great article.
I wholeheartedly agree that crowdsourcing is a trend that’s here to stay. It started off with mom-n-pop businesses, start-ups, and entrepreneurs but in the past year we’ve seen companies like DISH Networks, Adidas and TiVO embrace the idea of crowdsourcing by launching projects on 99designs.
Even Rick Warren, who wrote the bestselling book “The Purpose Driven Life” (30 million copies sold) turned to 99designs to design the cover of his current title (”The Hope You Need”).
There’s even a full-service ad agency - Victor&Spoils - which specializes in helping big brands crowdsource.