I think it’s safe to say that crowdsourcing will continue to be a hot topic as we head into 2010. In fact, I think we’ll see brands and agencies continue to tweak this concept to come up with a variety of possibilities. Some will work, others will flop – that’s the way evolution works.

I was thinking about the World Series of Poker recently and it occurred to me that there may be some learnings here for the professional creative. The WSOP started off far different from the massive event it is today. The first event was held in 1970 and ‘the field’ consisted of six professional poker players. That’s nothing more than a house game and not terribly dissimilar from an agency with a couple of creative teams all ‘playing’ for the winning idea. The field stayed under 100 for the first 12 years -  still a ‘closed’ competition that was really only for the professional.

The number of entries for the Main Event steadily increased over the next 20 years, until everything changed in 2003. That year a non-pro, Chris Moneymaker, beat a field of 838 competitors, feeding the dreams of amateur card players everywhere. The result? The next year saw an incredible 2,576 entrants and that number kept growing, peaking in 2006 with 8,773 entrants.

What has this meant for the pro poker player? Strictly speaking it hasn’t been good. Moneymaker opened the floodgates for thousands of talented amateurs who, in their sheer volume and through both skill and the draw of the cards have managed to keep the established pros from winnng the coveted Main Event bracelet and the massive cash payout for the winner (2009 winner Joe Cada pocketed $8.5 million). Of course the news isn’t all bad for the established poker pros. There have been two significant side benefits to the influx of amateurs:

1. The overall pot has grown geometrically and placing ‘in the money’ can take care of you for a long time. You don’t have to win to go away happy (at least financially)

2. Those pros who get knocked out early now have thousands of easy marks roaming Vegas looking for a side game, many with more money than skill.

So, overall, the established pros may not be winning the Main Event bracelet as frequently, but they are potentially making more money.

And right now the pros are still going to win (see: Peperami) but the ‘amateurs’ will catch up as they particapte more, become savvier and have access to greater tools.  But here’s the main difference – I don’t see the potential ancillary opportunities and advantages for profesional creatives that I see for pro poker players. It’s much more of a zero sum game. I don’t think crowdsourcing creative content is going to raise the value, and therefore fees, of creative work. Nor do I see how pro creatives can make supplementary dollars directly from the amateur creatives as the pro poker counterparts do.

At some point, probably next summer, you’ll see a crowdsourcing backlash as some unwitting brand will declare some plagiarized effort a ‘winner’ of some contest or perhaps a too many crowdsourced programs will fail to inspire a decent response and marketers will sour. But there will be success strories as well and if there are enough of them then crowdsourcing, like Reality Television, will gain a foothold. Agencies that can figure out a viable business model that incorporates crowdsourcing may have first mover advantage, which makes shops like Agency Nil and Victors & Spoils intriguing.

Tags: agency models, crowdsourcing, world series of poker