Originally posted at Blogging Innovation on June 17th, 2010

3GTV is the brainchild of Automated Media Services, and they are putting little screens in stores right next to products they promote and show commercials for those products. The notion of having what amounts to a tiny TV screen next to the Kraft Macaroni & Cheese would have sounded bizarre 20 years ago, not just because of cost, more because we didn’t think of TV screens being in very many places. Screens are everywhere today (mostly because of the low cost) and so we are less surprised to see them at restaurants and in elevators, etc.

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We hosted a panel of smart people this morning. It was an hour of smart discussion that started out with Edward Boches commenting that “The crowd wants to play, why not embrace them?”  Then got right in to why crowdsourcing continues to be such a big topic.

James DeJulio, from Tongal said that it is still in the spotlight because tt’s feasible for everyone to creative and make content now, for cheap.  At the same time, the economy has a lot to do with it, business are looking for a better way to spend their money. Social media has given people the opportunity to collect a wide group of fans – why not give them something to do? It seems like a positive for both the business and client side.

John Winsor, from Victors & Spoils added that there’s a feeling that when a traditional agency brings new ideas to the table, there aren’t many ideas. Companies these days want more creative ideas and a closer relationship with the people coming up with those ideas. With crowdsourcing, not only are they getting creative, they are also getting research at the same time. Also, traditional agency relationship clients are becoming uncomfortable with that. They want more radical transparency than they currently have.

Edward’s summary of the three things were  more ideas, closer to the community and definitely cost savings. Peter LaMotte, from Genius Rocket added that it is also diversity of concepts and affordability.

Edward’s next questions were about the benefits of analytics and the knowledge insight and intelligence that comes along with crowdsourcing.

Peter said that tapping into a community really brings a diverse set of input to clients that can actually provide insight into their brands that you wouldn’t get from an agency. With crowdsourcing, from the front and on the back end, you are able to capture much more info than ever before.

Edward noted that what fascinated him when he did a project with Tongal was it was like getting back qualitative research along with creative, which is valuable.

James DeJulio,  Yes, the more places you can get people to participate and the more types of people you can get to participate, the more you get back real interpretations of your brand. He added a great analogy about how people view your brand and how you expect them to view your brand – sometimes what people want and what people say they want is different, “If you hate Duke, but think they are going to make it into the final four, you are going to put it in your top picks.”

When Edward asked if there were any conflicts to people embracing crowdsourcing as a way of working John Winsor chimed in and said he thinks it will be interesting to see what agencies do. Will they try and lockdown talent with more non-compete type things? There’s no answer to this. However,  Mark Walsh said what they’re seeing in the Genius Rocket community is that a lot of people in the creative agencies have realized that they are their own brand. They need to cultivate and promote that brand (themselves) more than they have in the past.

Edward Boches said as an employer, when he hires young people now, they all have outside interests. They pretty much insist that if you try and deny their interests in these other areas, they won’t work with you. The whole crowdsourcing model could affect the relationships people have with their employers.

The panel wrapped up with some words of wisdom from each panelist

James Sherrett AdHack – What you are looking for has to be key to the objective. Try it out on a low risk, small project, figure it out fast and iterate.

James DeJulio Tongal – First, commitment as an organization, Get behind it. Second,  a leap of faith that it is going to work, because it will work.

John Winsor Victors & Spoils – Break down silos. Connection and integration between product and marketing within your company is key.

Mark Walsh Genius Rocket – Start small with an orphan brand, so you are willing to try new stuff on. Those who ignore where crowdsourcing is taking the relationship between a brand and its customers are looking for trouble. Customers today are so drenched in interactivity and transparency, you have to respond to that, it is no longer an option.

It doesn’t mean that crowdsourcing is the enemy of ad agencies. We all want to play nice together. We’re just a new tactic in a toolbox that is coming along like a freight train.

Edward Boches Mullen – I look at one thing only: How consumers behave, interact and use content, community and the tools that are out there. The consumer has already decided. They are creating content. Any brand or marketer that doesn’t take advantage of that in a way that will work for them is crazy.

note: you can listen to the full hour panel here: Advertising and the Crowd Invasion – recorded audio

Crowdsourcing is as much about the process and the theater of creation as the output.  Maybe even more so.  A lot of my job is to explain to our clients that not only is the content we produce incredibly valuable (that’s easy to understand) but the engagement, participation, sharing, and all the other intangible (an important) benefits of crowdsourcing are what you’re paying for?  If no one can understand it’s value, then how do we charge for it?

Indulge me in a Chuck Klosterman-esque fantasy for a second…

INT.  INDUSTRIAL BROOKLYN, NY OFFICE BUILDING

This doesn’t really look or feel like an office, but it must be because there are a lot of people working here.  “The Hold Steady” is playing over a house PA or Muzak system.  There’s an overwhelming concentration of Apple products, exposed brick, exposed heat ducts, exposed electrical outlets–a lot of exposed shit…

JAMES DEJULIO (30s, Italian-ish) has a room of hipster looking (boat shoes, rock tees, tight jeans, ironic moustaches, etc.) forward thinking BRAND EXECUTIVES captivated after demo-ing the Tongal Platform.

EXECUTIVE #1

This is really cool. Brilliant model.  I really think we can make this work.

EXECUTIVE #2

How many videos do you think we’ll get?

DEJULIO

Depends.  50.  100 maybe.

EXECUTIVE #2

Really? And people all over the world are going to create these…for us?

DEJULIO

Yeah, if we do it right.

EXECUTIVE #1

Ok.  If this program produces 50 decent user generated ads for us and we’ve paid out

$10,000..that’s pretty good.

EXECUTIVE #1

That’s rad—and no one in this room is going to lose their jobs over that.  Right Julian?

(beat)

Julian?

Executive #2, not paying attention is texting on his iPhone.

EXECUTIVE #2

Oh, sorry, I just saw a tweet that the Kogi truck is outside.

EXECUTIVE #1

Ok.  Let’s do this.

DEJULIO

Hey that’s really great guys, I love early adopters.

DeJulio, ready to bust out the Tongal green-colored business Amex and take his new clients out for some over priced Micro Brews goes in for a high five…no reaction.  A long beat.  EXECUTIVE #1 whispers into EXECUTIVE #2′s ear.   EXECUTIVE #2 nods, breaks up the action.

EXECUTIVE #2

Hang on, what’s your CPM?

EXECUTIVE #1

How many users do you have?

EXECUTIVE #2

Is it comparable to Facebook?  What about traffic?

DEJULIO (to self)

Christ.

(to group)

Why does that still matter?

It’s easy to measure (and charge) for impressions.  But what are those impressions really worth?  I think the reason that a lot of people fail to wrap their heads around the value of crowdsourcing (and other forms of social media) is that there’s no metric for it yet.  Do social media companies need a rating agency?  What characteristics would justify a AAA rating for a social media platform?

Before we can even entertain that idea, businesses need to begin to assess a real value to what engagement and total brand immersion are worth.  They need to understand that if a 1,000 people completely engaged will always be more valuable than 100,000 people who aren’t paying attention.

Pretty bold statement, but why do I think it’s especially accurate for a creative, well-designed and executed crowdsourcing campaign?

For example, if there’s a crowdsourcing project on Tongal to create a 30 second spot and a member of the community opts into spending an afternoon thinking about a concept for a commercial for your product-maybe even researching your product and asking his or her friends for their input–then distills that down to 140 characters and submits it to a Tongal campaign, what’s that worth?  What’s that dialogue worth?  What’s it worth compared to 100,000 people fast forwarding through your ad on DVR? Or, flipping right past it in a magazine while getting a whiff of some terrible cologne?

What about when that user comes back in a week and opts-in to gathering a group of friends to spend a weekend creating a video for your product? He has to enlist help, he has to call in favors, he has to spend a few hours editing the film.  When the film is completed, he’ll begin sharing it with the friends who helped him, his mom, and their moms-because they’re all proud of it-and what’s just magically happened is that all of these people have become emotionally vested in your product.  (pssst-you may also have a fantastic piece of work which you now have the option to purchase)

The interesting thing is that the user has chosen to do this.  He’s having fun.  He either had a previous affinity for your product or service, or he just discovered it and he likes it.  Especially, he likes you because you’re letting him in the door by giving him a chance to do something he enjoys and your product is the catalyst.

How can you compare that to a banner ad?

James deJulio is the President and Co-founder of Tongal. He is a partner in Half Shell Entertainment and formerly Vice President of The Robert Evans Company at Paramount Pictures. In mid-2008, disillusioned with the inefficient, bureaucratic manner in which films were being developed, produced and financed, he decided to “shake things up a bit”. He began exploring with Jack Hughes ways in which the TopCoder thinking could be applied to creating filmed content.

If you’d like to hear more from him, join us on Wednesday at 11am EST for an online discussion about advertising and the crowd invasion.

In February 2010 Super Bowl XLIV became the most-watched TV program ever, pulling in an average audience of 106.5 million viewers. The big game, the fans and the ads all contributed to a huge event.

But did you know that 2 of the top 5 ads shown during the Super Bowl were crowdsourced by Doritos?

Or that the top ads before and after the Super Bowl — those with the largest viral reach and sustained engagement — were crowdsourced? *

True and true.

Advertising is just the latest industry to find remarkable ways of unlocking the value of crowdsourcing.

Through the last 2 years I’ve seen advertisers experiment with crowdsourcing, find early success and expand how they use crowds in their marketing mix.

And we’ve discovered the following guidelines to maximize the chances of advertisers finding outstanding success with crowdsourcing.

• Fit the process to the brand — How open to participation is the brand? Or, to flip the question, how much control of communications does the brand need? Many brands are consumer-focused and benefit from a totally open creative process. Other brands are business-to-business or subject to regulatory requirements and need a different approach. Match the process to the brand and you’re starting on the right foot.
• Start small and specific — You’re getting your feet wet when you’re starting, so start by dipping your toe in. Define a specific advertising campaign, objective and scope of work. The smaller and better defined, the better chance you have for success.
• Great tools + great people = win! — Once you’ve set yourself up to succeed, success is a matter of combining great tools and great people. Great tools so the process works clearly, quickly and pain-free. Great people because they are the source of ideas and the engines of creativity. And if you’re starting from scratch both tools and people are hard to create and recruit.
• Measure, listen, learn and repeat — Measure effects of your advertising. Listen to feedback from customers, employees and stakeholders. Learn how to apply your lessons to the next phase. Then repeat. It’s not always the best first shot that wins, it’s always the fastest to learn that wins.

When we worked with the team at Crispin Porter + Bogusky on the launch of Microsoft Windows 7 we needed to work to specific launch deadlines and with confidentiality requirements. They wanted a big bang and no leaks. So we fit the process to the desired outcome.

With other clients, we’ve done whole creative campaigns in public, with an open call for contributors, refined to a select group of creators and available creative work throughout the process.

The ads that resulted had feedback and market testing baked in and lived up to our tagline: People-Powered Advertising.

Next up: more.

More different ways for crowdsourcing to improve advertising.

More variations of ads so you stop seeing the same ones over and over and over, etc.

More types of creative work — iPhone apps, social games, digital billboards — to help companies communicate and engage their customers.

Today: we can see how crowdsourcing of advertising has unlocked creativity and led to new approaches, new ideas and new creators finding outlets for their work.

Tomorrow: we can only guess what we’ll see. But it’ll surely be creative and it’ll surely connect people with great creators and creative work.

* AdAge article Doritos, Google, Super Bowl Ads Storm Chart

James Sherrett is the founder and CEO of AdHack — the marketplace for ad creative. In past lives he wrote a novel entitled Up in Ontario and guided fishermen. Now he connects brands and ad agencies to the world’s top on-demand creative department: 500+ strong in 18+ countries, working in all media types: TV, web, video, print, games and more.