Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing may become an important part of doing business. Within the creative industry it has been a topic of hot debate. To understand crowdsourcing and its potential impact upon commercial business there are multiple facets to consider. To start, what is it now and what will it become?

Crowdsourcing involves outsourcing tasks to any interested person through an open call for submissions. Among other things, it has been used for testing new technology, consumer research, and information processing. The pioneers of the industry envision an on-demand virtual workforce that will be at anyone's fingertips. It will be as easy to purchase cheap labor on a global scale as it is to buy a book on amazon.com. The term “crowdsourcing” was coined by Jeff Howe of Wired magazine. There is no crowd doing the work, rather a variety of individuals taking on the work at will. Some are willing to risk their time and effort for little or no return.

Crowdsourcing is gaining quite a bit of momentum. Peperami recently left its agency of record to produce its broadcast advertising through open call competitions. Bounty has done the same. Crispin, Porter, + Bogusky's team of interns crowdsourced a logo for their client Brammo Motorcycles. On his blog, Alex Bogusky himself chimed in with his views on crowdsourcing.

Not too long ago three senior level executives at CP+B branched out to start their own agency called Victor N' Spoils. They are a creative agency who mediates crowdsourcing for their clients. This model may prove to be one of a few that will be necessary to sustain the future of the creative industry.

Benefits & downsides of crowdsourcing for corporate companies:

Benefits
- Problem-solving is explored for very little cost or no cost at all
- Participants experience collaborative brand-building
- Companies gain consumer insights
- Talent outside of the organization is discovered
- Talented laypeople are given a chance to stand out
- Companies gain full rights to the materials

Downsides
- Additional expenses may be required to reach satisfactory results, as work may not be up to par
- Additional labor costs are required to sort through each submission
- Projects risk failure due to lack of funding, amateur level of work, language barriers, or too few participants
- Not all projects are appropriate for crowdsourcing, such as in cases involving confidential information
- Trust is not established and there is risk of malicious work spread online
- Accounting and taxation issues arise for anyone paid over $600
- There is no relationship with the worker completing tasks
- Companies face ethical dilemmas regarding fair pay of workers

Crowdsourcing & the Creative Industry

Crowdsourcing has the potential to create a rift within the creative industry as it becomes increasingly competitive. Top talent always demands a premium price and that will remain true of the design community. However, there is a broad range of skill within the field, and crowdsourcing may further distinguish the holistic designer from those less talented. My theory is this: that many amateur designers are likely to implement crowdsourcing and as a result fail to fully potentiate their careers. Those who desire to do quality work but survive on smaller, local projects may be at the mercy of their clients who may view crowdsourcing as the best thing since AAA Logo. As prices are driven down, jobs will be eliminated and fewer people will pursue design as a career. Only the very best will manage to succeed without resorting to crowdsourcing, and new graduates will struggle all the more to differentiate themselves and be counted among the few who practice design professionally.

If young and uneducated designers flock to crowdsourcing, they may bring down industry prices for those who are not the Mercedes and Ferrari's of the industry. This could allow for demonetization to take place, which could potentially lead to a large losses if it happened too fast for the industry to adjust. I do not intend to be a harbinger of doom, but the journalism field is in the midst of this situation and who is to say the creative industry is not susceptible? Talented design firms will remain, but the question is, how many?

If you disagree that full-time jobs with benefits could be lost in our industry, you need only look at how advancements in technology have affected the way the music, journalism, and stock photography industries now function. Changes in technology are inevitable, and those who do not change with it will fail. When desktop publishing was first released by Quark, designers cringed at its typesetting abilities and many refused to embrace it. But sure enough, the technology overcame and the industry was forced to change with it.

Crowdspring.com is probably the most prominent example of an online crowdsourcing community for design. Companies post jobs with a preset amount of pay for which any designer can submit work. Thus far these companies have had mild success, but the quality of work produced has been poor more often than not.

The system is not seamless. Taking a complex task in the design & branding industry, exposing it to the crowd to solve, and having it fall back in your lap with all bench marks met is not how it tends to work. According to those I know that have actually used crowdsourcing, the ratio of poor work to quality work is about ninety to ten. The exception: CP+B reported a tremendous response with quality work. Keep in mind the currently high unemployment rate and the fact that CP+B is considered to be one of the top advertising agencies. An agency with such an excellent reputation will of course receive a significant response. CP+B's & Victor N' Spoils commitment to crowdsourcing in the future will prove to be an interesting case study.

Risks of Crowdsourcing

Certain key questions will affect the future of crowdsourcing: what is the tolerance level of the crowd? When will people begin to feel betrayed if they are not paid what they believe they deserve? The first time an individual's work is chosen, he or she may be excited enough to overlook insufficient pay, but what if his or her work is chosen a second and third time? Crowdsourcing will not be a long term solution for anyone seeking to make a living unless companies rise to the occasion and pay these individuals as they would normal laborers. Otherwise they may primarily attract unskilled or inexperienced workers, such as college students or stay-at-home parents.

Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing and branding, and crowdsourcing is another avenue in which it can work against an organization. If a company does not treat a hired worker properly, widespread negative associations will be formed with the brand when the individual shares his or her negative experiences with others.

There are two main contexts within crowdsourcing in which I currently do not approve. First, the use of crowdsourcing to create the end point for commercial communication without any professional guidance has not proved to be effective. A collaborative approach is necessary in order to develop a refined solution. I will maintain this view until I obtain adequate proof that use of crowdsourcing as an end point works consistently. The second issue of concern regards the unethical practice of taking advantage of people and their ideas by not paying them fairly. It is only a matter of time before the crowd will begin to understand why many creatives are upset about crowdsourcing. Suddenly the crowd will be put in the creative’s shoes, forming a shared understanding between the crowd and professionals. Any respectable communications professional knows that the crowd demands transparency. When unethical practices within crowdsourcing come to light, the crowd will be unrelenting and shun those who behave unethically. 

Examples: How Crowdsourcing Shows Promise

There are ways in which crowdsourcing can be utilized appropriately. Its application in consumer research, ethical ideation, and brand participation is proving to be a fascinating and viable strategy for brands. To my knowledge, the best example of this application is demonstrated by Starbucks’ site mystarbucksidea.com, on which anyone can suggest ideas of how to improve the Starbucks experience. The Web site includes three main sections: the crowd’s ideas, the crowd’s ideas that Starbucks likes, and the crowd’s ideas that Starbucks has implemented. This is crowdsourcing at its best, and there is no argument that this is an ethical practice. The site allows an opportunity for customers to communicate directly with Starbucks' corporate headquarters. It creates one unified entity where anyone can converse and find answers, and allows the consumer to hold Starbucks accountable to the ideas they implement. This is where crowdsourcing is most effective, in creating relationships between a brand and consumers, blurring the lines as to which one is which. There is no “us vs. them” mentality; it's just “us”…a group of coffee-loving fanatics trying to create one perfect brewtopia.

Tim Brown in his book Change by Design says it well, "The 20th century image of the 'unruly mob' is giving way to the twenty-first century discovery of the 'wisdom of the crowds.' We need to invent a new and radical form of collaboration that blurs the boundaries between creators and consumers. There is no longer 'us on behalf of them.' It is now 'us with them.' In the past, the consumer was viewed as the object of analysis or, worse, as the hapless target of predatory marketing strategies. Now we must migrate toward ever-deeper collaboration not just among members of a design team but between the team and the audience it is trying to reach."

Nike is using this kind of collaboration brilliantly. They work with an inner-city non-profit in New York City that helps youth who need a safe place to go when they are not in school. These urban youth take their free time to help design and give feedback to Nike on their future products. Nike's products are not just urban youth inspired, they are co-created with urban youth. There is no replacement for this kind of collaboration between professionals and the market they are trying to reach.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC plans to implement crowdsourcing in order to produce user-generated content for a new museum. This will allow American families to share generations of information that would otherwise be lost or kept private.

Innocentive is an online community where companies like Procter & Gamble and Boeing post some of their most complex problems. The award for solving these problems can vary from $10,000 to $100,000. Physicists and chemists across the world have resolved their most complex challenges with ease. P&G is learning that a diverse array of individuals with a variety of backgrounds can solve these problems at far less of an expense to the company. P&G happily pays out thousands because it would cost them millions in labor costs for their own R&D department to handle the same problem.

Over time, different industries will learn to appropriately use crowdsourcing and realize the diversity it can attract. The results could be quite impressive. Imagine a network within the medical field working together to find cures for diseases. Technology could provide the medium through which answers may be found by sharing information and allowing any qualified researcher or MD to tackle the world's most complex issues.

The crowd is powerful, and to not utilize it as a source could be your organization’s undoing. On the other hand, use of the crowd could be the very thing that leads to your undoing. Such double-edged swords have always had their place in business, but they are now appearing in the context of a globalized community. Whether you implement crowdsourcing or not, be smart, think strategically, and create brand experiences that are in service to the core of your organization. Those who do will be rewarded; those who do not will leave their fate to the masses.

Further Reading

Alex Bogusky's Blog, Edward Boches' Blog, Wired Magazine, BBH Labs, Random House

Posted by Brent Loosli