My descent into the world of crowdsourcing continues tomorrow as I’ll be at the Crowdsourcing & Disruption event at the Pratt Institute. This figures to be another quality gathering by the looks of the panel, which includes Ric Grefe, Executive Director of AIGA; Craig Kanarick, Founder of Razorfish; and FoE (Friends of Eyecube) Ben Malbon from BBH Labs and John Winsor of Victors & Spoils.

For those of you unable to attend, I reached out to organizers James Tung and Alexander Smith and hit them up with some questions. Here are their takes on the state of crowdsourcing today and in the future. First up, James:

Eyecube: For students or creatives early in their careers, does crowdsourcing offer a great opportunity, or is it devaluing the creative product?

James Tung: Crowdsourcing’s initial proposition does suggest greater opportunities for students and people early in their careers, but upon closer examination one realizes that there are some issues: 1) the opportunity is open to a broad range of different kinds of people in all stages of their various careers and 2) the reward (usually monetary) is singular in nature.

While a tiered reward system may be implemented, the situation where everyone involved may also be rewarded seems highly impractical. The time that one applies toward this opportunity may, indeed, go unmerited and it is with this understanding that perhaps the opportunity becomes a risk where there is no gain.

The democratic nature of crowdsourcing suggests elimination of traditional classifications. Does it make sense to talk about students, creatives early in their careers, mid-level creatives, veteran creatives, retiree creatives, or even creatives in general when a project is open to everyone and anyone?

I see the creative process as equally valuable if not more valuable than the end results sometimes. In an ideal situation this creative process is unique and benefits both the creator and the client requesting creative work. I am unsure of crowdsourcing’s role as creative process. I see it as an attempt to commoditize creativity. Is there such a thing as a generic creativity? I don’t think so.

Eyecube: Can 3,000 amateurs produce higher quality work than three or four pros? Can they do it once, or consistently over time?

James Tung: There is a possibility that 3,000 amateurs may produce higher quality work than three or four professionals, but I think the question is misleading. It implies that 3000 amateurs are working together collectively when in reality it is 3000 amateurs working individually. In my experiences with such an experiment, the output was tremendous and wide ranging, but the quality of the work was underwhelming. I can see a client becoming very overwhelmed with so many options. The output of three or four professionals may seem small, but if it is the right three or four professionals the work will be informed. I offer the following historical exchange:

John Ruskin: “The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?”

James Whistler: “No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.”

Eyecube: From a consumer standpoint, does it really matter where the creative comes from? I mean does it matter whether a 30 second Doritos ad was made by your neighbor or by CP+B?

James Tung: It depends on the consumer type you are speaking about. Not all consumers consume creative in the same way. Some people enjoy movies without being interested in who makes the movies, whereas some people are devoted to certain filmmakers and sit through the end credits.

There is most certainly something to be said about consumer generated content. However, I think this requires someone, somewhere to recognize that such content has creative merit.

Eyecube: It’s 2015. Is crowdsourcing the go to creative platform or has it been discredited? (no points for hedging!)

James Tung: I do see value in crowdsourcing as a process and I don’t see crowdsourcing going away in 5 years time. As for its role in certain creative fields, it is already a reality. Do I want it to be the go-to platform for creative work? Not really. (Did I cheat? Probably.)

Thanks James, now, same questions for Alex…

Eyecube: For students or creatives early in their careers, does crowdsourcing offer a great opportunity, or is it devaluing the creative product?
Alex Smith: Students and creative professionals in the early stages of their careers have always been presented with many offers to do work for little or no compensation. These are usually framed as excellent opportunities for the young designer to get some exposure or develop their portfolio, but in the end the only person for whom they are great opportunities is the one commissioning the work. Still, sometimes it turns out to be worth it for the designer. Those just starting out have to go through the process a couple of times before they can judge how much they are getting taken advantage of.
Eyecube: Can 3,000 amateurs produce higher quality work than three or four pros? Can they do it once, or consistently over time?
Alex Smith: Can one million monkeys pawing at a million typewriters for a million years bang out the complete works of Shakespeare? I just looked this up on wiki and it turns out the chances are very low. Miniscule in fact, but not zero. The irony of the fact that I used a crowdsourced encyclopedia is not lost on me, though to be fair the models are quite different.
The actual answer is, it depends. It depends on who those amateurs are and what the problem they are working on is. Not all crowds are created equally, some crowds are in fact curated or pre-filtered. As I understand it, this is the idea that Victors and Spoils built their business model on. Furthermore, some problems lend themselves to crowdsourced solutions. In fact sometimes crowdsourcing IS the solution itself. Still, for all of that to work there needs to be a firm hand on the tiller somewhere upstream.

Eyecube: From a consumer standpoint, does it really matter where the creative comes from? I mean does it matter whether a 30 second Doritos ad was made by your neighbor or by CP+B?

Alex Smith: It probably matters less for a Doritos ad than it does for a Mercedes Benz ad. Or, from a consumer standpoint it seems unlikely that your neighbor’s ad will have the kinds of high value signifiers that one might look for in a brand message about luxury, quality and craftsmanship.

Eyecube: It’s 2015. Is crowdsourcing the go to creative platform or has it been discredited? (no points for hedging!)

Alex Smith: Crowdsourcing will still be around in 2015. It will have spawned some sub-species by then. The curated crowd, or the pre- qualified crowd being the most obvious of these, but I expect there will be other more exotic forms as entrepreneurs work to create different facilitating platforms. Serious brands will continue to work with professionals with whom they have on-going relationships because in the end good design is structural rather than surface driven and its execution requires a talented and passionate professional.

This should be a terrific event if the thoughtfulness and strength of viewpoints exhibited by James and Alex is anything to go on. I’ll have a follow up report on the event later this week.

I wrote this as a guest post for the gang over at Chaordix who are doing some interesting things with crowdsourcing. Be sure to check out their blog, which has a lot of thought-provoking essays from a diverse group of authors.

Crowdsource has become one of those marketing buzzwords that gets thrown around a lot on blogs and in conference rooms. It’s the shiny new toy and everyone wants to play with it. That’s great, it is an exciting and potentially dynamic way to generate breakthrough ideas that will resonate with consumers. But the term is applied rather liberally to a wide variety of activities and executions.  Want a new logo for your brand? Crowdsource it! Want to engage consumers via a contest? That’s crowdsourcing!  Looking for new product innovations? That’s right, you guessed it, that’s crowdsourcing.

Now this is to be expected and comes with the territory. Until the marketing communications industry has had a couple more years to adjust to the opportunities that technology enables, crowdsourcing is going to be wielded more like a club than a scalpel. But hopefully agencies and brands will become more sophisticated and nuanced in their approach.  

When a brand invites customers to produce content and receive something – money, recognition, prizes – in return, that’s not crowdsourcing, that’s a contest. We’ve been doing that for years.

When a brand puts out a call to action to the freelance creative community (amateurs and pros) to create a new 30 second TV spot, that’s not  crowdsourcing, that’s a cattle call.

We have the ability to harness the skills, experiences and intellect of virtually anyone on the planet and the best brands can come up with is, “Hey everybody, what should the new flavor of our fizzy sugar water be?”?  Ok, I guess, but this seems like a missed opportunity, and that’s why I advocate expertsourcing rather than crowdsourcing.

What is expertsourcing? Expertsourcing is a sub-category of crowdsourcing where the goal is to aggregate a wide range of individuals who are experts in their fields, rather than just a ‘come one, come all’ herd of people who have come to the party perhaps with nothing really worthwhile to contribute. Is there really much value in the 35th, 70th or 100th extra logo concept that was just slapped together by someone with no training?

With expertsourcing you’re looking to get a group that ideally has little overlapping skills or knowledge. The more diverse the better, the more esoteric the better. For a brand, utilizing this sort of talent to create a new ad for beef jerky is a waste. You’ve got to think bigger. You have to challenge them with a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal).  Reinvent the education system; create a downtown with only bike traffic; create a better system of government!  

Experts have a passion for causes and often have connections to experts from other fields. They are highly self-motivated the synergies created by having multiple experts often produces even greater results.  It’s time for brands to start thinking about trying to harness a school of sharks, rather than herd a flock of sheep.

While Everyone Is Illuminated focused on crowdsourcing, the initial impetus was how crowdsourcing was gaining prominence as agency models were being questioned. I continue to dive into this question and came across Guided Collective which is officially opening up shop on March 8. You can check out their website now and view a slick animation that describes their process. I caught up with Sam Reid, one of the Directors of Guided prior to their launch and asked him to give me his take, and Guided’s approach, to agency models and crowdsourcing:

Eyecube: First, give me your interpretation of the word “crowdsourcing” and how Guided fits in.
 
Sam Reid:  The Internet is analogous to a global nervous system and it’s now in a good enough shape to starting thinking of newer possibilities. Tasks previously never possible, feasible and practical can now be tackled by the power of collective intelligence. We now have a massive opportunity for collaborative problem solving. There are varying degrees and functions but in essence we’re now a connected colony capable of incredible things.
Improved technology means it’s easy to identify talent and then have them collaborate. Collaboration across disciplines is where completely new insights are gained. The potential is enormous.
However the word crowd refers to an unruly mass of people, and that’s not Guided. We’re a defined collective so perhaps the crowdsourcing term isn’t so applicable. We’re a hybrid that curates ideas from a selected walled garden of professional talent. We’re simply using technology and social sensibilities to evolve a new approach which is hopefully more suited to the new media habitat.
 
Eyecube: It’s a crowded (no pun intended) space right now, how is Guided unique in their offering, both to prospective clients and prospective creatives?
 
Sam Reid: We believe that crowdsourcing on its own can’t handle complex marketing problems. Guided has taken some crowdsourcing principles but adapted them to make them more practical and relevant, for example joining our collective is by invitation only and it is limited in number. Individuals have a strong chance of being rewarded at multiple stages of a project process. Also clients need solid strategy and experienced account servicing. In any transitional time a safe pair of hands is essential, so we keep those components in house, which means the client experience is much like they’re used to.

Our collaborative process works in parallel so ideas are integrated and relevant to each other, where creativity informs the media, and not the other way round.

The collective are professionals and have range of backgrounds much wider than traditional advertising, and when this cross fertilizes, very exciting stuff happens.

Our aim with Guided is to create stuff that people want and need. We say to clients ‘do you want to be seen or do you want to be talked about?’ If it’s the latter a creative resource which is culturally grounded will help achieve this. You need people who create talked about stuff alongside those who know how to create value for clients. A balance.

Eyecube: If you ran a massive, traditional ad shop, how would you try to embrace this new model?
 
Sam Reid: Maybe look to creative resources like Guided to plug into for new thinking and alternative creativity. To become nimble will probably take most big shops some time and substantial deconstruction. Consumers still need to be informed about stuff quickly and big shops are very good at the awareness game in ATL.

But we can do that too. We can also solve complex and word of mouth marketing problems, through innovative use of API’s and platforms like the iPhone, and whats more we can make it work in tandem with traditional campaigns by working in parallel instead of in (silo’d) series.

Also organsations like ours will pair with other disciplines to form expansive modular networks. We are currently reaching agreements with a couple of independent businesses who can provide services we cannot. It then flips the other way around and offers them a rich pool of talent for their clients to tap into.
 
Eyecube: What one client, or category, would you most like a shot at with the Guided concept?
 
Sam Reid: We aim (and I use this loosely but it make sense for our setup) to focus on Digital & Experiential engagement, with PR informing strategy upstream. The more we progress towards a life of 1’s and 0’s the more important it is to counterbalance this with real life events and tangible relationships, and we see social as the connector.

As for clients. We’re working with a range of people currently from a high end fashion retailer to a global financial institution. They couldn’t be more different problems we’re working on. The commonality is where the messaging has a value for their potential consumers beyond an attention speed bump.
 
Eyecube: Five years from now, how will crowdsourcing have changed the ad shops and creatives work?
 
Sam Reid: It could be that advertising agencies will start to divide into 2 types, possibly more. On one side you’ll have more DM/Production focused, and on the other diverse creative resources, with larger talent pools working remotely (like Guided). The two will work in conjunction together to meet the needs of clients; one side (DM/Production) making stuff that needs to be said loudly and quickly and on the other (Diverse Creative) it’ll be more brand building and value exchanges.  ‘If you want me to pay attention, what are you going to do for me?’ will be the starting point for creative messaging maybe? People don’t like advertising they like culture. Brands have the opportunity to become the benefactors of culture by getting the right talent to produce it and then letting it be shared by their potential consumers .
 
In addition they wont have to buy media for it to exist on, so they can perhaps look at creating lots of things instead big & expensive one offs. It’ll be the cumulative effect of lots of transmedia pieces of great content which will equate to a positive brand glow.

Pure crowdsourcing itself will be become fundamental to product development by engaging consumers on a co-creation level. Those who begin to understand the mechanics and psychologies of harnessing crowds will be in a good position to hone this and design demographic specific CS models. Incentivisation is the thing to nail. Why should someone let you tap their thoughts? What are you offering them first? Perhaps this has been the problem with interruptive based adversing; no one enjoys having their time stolen, so don’t steal, and try earning it instead.

Brilliant stuff Sam, and best of luck to you and the Guided team. For further reading on crowdsourcing, read Sam’s post The Need for Science in Social which highlights this essential read, entitled, Harnessing Crowds: Mapping the Genome of Collective Intelligence.

Earlier this week I read an interesting post on the 20 Best Known European Football Brands on The UK Sports Network site. The article referenced a Sport+Markt 2009-2010 study of brand recognition among football fans in the top five markets (UK, Germany, Spain, France & Italy). You can read the report yourself here.

I thought it might be interesting to look at this data and try to extrapolate from it which club brands were the most powerful. Unscientific of course, but I wanted to see to what degree being aligned with a specific club (or clubs) is a factor, in addition to sponsoring tournaments like the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League or UEFA European Championships. So, let’s take a look. Here’s the 2009 Delloitte & Touche Money League of clubs* along with the brands listed in the Sport+Markt survey (and the brands ranking in that survey) associated with them:

1. Real Madrid – adidas (1), Coca-Cola (5), Audi (8), bwin (9)

2. Manchester United – Nike (2), AIG (6), Audi (8),

3. FC Barcelona – Nike (2), Audi (8), Unicef (15)

4. Bayern Munich – adidas (1), Coca-Cola (5), Audi (8)

5. Chelsea – adidas (1), Samsung (10), Heineken (20)

6. Arsenal – Nike (2), Emirates (5)

7. Liverpool – adidas (1), Carlsberg (7)

8. AC Milan – adidas (1), bwin (9)

9. AS Roma -

10. Inter Milan – Nike (2)

11. Juventus – Nike (2)

12. Olympique Lyonnais – Umbro (16), Orange (18)

13. Schalke 04 – adidas (1)

14. Tottenham Hotspur – Puma (3), Carlsberg (7)

15. Hamburger SV – adidas (1), Emirates (5)

16. Olympique Marseille – adidas (1), Orange (18)

17. Newcastle United – adidas (1)

18. VfB Stuttgart – Puma (3), Coca-Cola (4)

19. Fenerbahce – adidas (1), Audi (8)

20. Manchester City – Umbro (16)

*I looked for the list of official club sponsors on official team websites as of February 2010.

Who from the Sport+Markt list weren’t represented by a club from the Delloitte & Touche Money League clubs?

11. Reebok

12. Opel (Read this Sport Business story from 2001 calling them the ‘most successful shirt sponsor’)

13. Vodafone

14. Ford – Champions League

17. MasterCard – Champions League

19. Sony – Champions League

So, the two odd men out appear to be Reebok and Vodafone. Now, Vodafone is a massive sponsor of sport and had a run with ManU a while back from which they may still be seeing a halo effect. Reebok sponsors Ryan Giggs (ManU), Thierry Henry & Iker Casillas (Barca) and formally kitted out Liverpool and Man City. AS Roma are the only club in the top 20 not aligned with a big sponsor.

I think a big winner here may be Audi. Not a name I immediately associated with big time European football, I was surprised to see them so high. But they have a variety of partnerships with leading clubs, allowing them to also create the Audi Cup in July 2009, which featured ManU, Bayern Munich and AC Milan along with Boca Juniors of Argentina. I don’t think they’ve spent the same type of money as some of the other top 10 brands, bet I suspect they are reaping rewards from their associations.  Look too for Umbro to move up the charts if the English National Team can make a run in the 2010 FIFA World Cup this summer.

Two Notes:

#1 – This post uses last year’s Delloite & Touche Money League information. The new league table just came out yesterday I believe, with very little difference. Just wanted you to know I saw it.

#2 Much more importantly, this post can also be found over at The UK Sports Network, a group I am pleased to now be writing for. Well worth checking them out if you have any interest in global sports.