Crowdsourcing: Cheap engagement, or cheapening brands?

Social Media Marketing & Measurement Workshop

Crowdsourcing: Cheap engagement, or cheapening brands?

The whole thing reminds me of the story of Tom Sawyer suckering the other kids into painting his fence. What's in it for them? Sure, get people involved in your brand; but don't ask them to do work you could (should) do yourself. That's when you cheapen your brand, and disengage your audience!

Tiffany Jones, Marketing Maven - September 3, 2010

I find the Pepsi Refresh campaign inspiring, along with My Starbucks. Crowdsourcing done well, in line with your brand values, can be inspiring and energize a brand.

Helen Chang - September 3, 2010

The fact that you can even get consumers to engage with your brand is a plus. Brand managers can still curate the submissions and choose selections that are brand appropriate. Fresh ideas and insights are valuable-- no matter who they come from. Crowdsourcing is here to stay.

Cecilia Pagkalinawan, CEO, StyleTrek - September 4, 2010

This question is posed so broadly it is hard to sensibly address the whole issue. It's a little like asking, "The Internet: Good or Bad?"There are certainly really cool examples of brands using crowdsourcing to engage consumers in really meaningful ways, and that use is probably extremely beneficial in strengthening brands.Using crowdsourcing to sidestep professional design is another matter altogether, and is extremely destructive in both the short and long term. It damages the design industry, but just as important, it shortchanges the brand by circumventing a thorough discovery and vetting process.Crowdsourcing cool ideas to secure consumer engagement: GOOD. Crowdsourcing to cheapen the design process: BAD.

Tim Johnson, President, Brandwave - September 4, 2010

There is nothing wrong with brands engaging their consumers in a variety of ways, as long as there is a robust strategy that guides these actions to ensure brand sustainability. OMO built its equity through testimonial advertising. One could argue about the role played by these ads, which were driven by the advertising agencies themselves. Marketers are growing younger and less experienced and pressure is mounting on justifying ad spend. Ad agencies must adapt and take their rightful place again of being brand custodians, otherwise marketers will be found searching for "other creative ways" of building brands (and saving money) whether successfully or not.

Sbu Manqele, Group Business Director, The Switch Group - September 4, 2010

I agree with Tim's point above. The crowdsourcing strategy adopted by brands is only useful if its purpose fits primarily the consumer's agenda. If any such action is to be perceived as meaningful by consumers it has to be structured around the them, first of all. There is also the need to define and distinguish crowdsourcing initiatives â€“ that simply try to convert brand loyalty and empathy into cheap labour by encouraging people to work for free with the promise of cash incentive to successful participants â€“ and the open, often more democratic, debate generated in processes of co-creation. Crowdsourcing can only build equity for brands if works as a softer, first-hand consultative action instead of a full-on campaign that asks people to 'donate' their time and skills with no clear benefit for them.

Vilmar Pellisson, Senior Creative Consultant, HYBRID - September 5, 2010

A good deal of advertising is experimentation. This is more of the same. Crowdsourcing can be an interesting opportunity for customer engagement or a disaster. It can also become an obvious ploy. Consumers can tell the difference. One thing no one has mentioned is that it's not just the consumers who engage that a brand needs to watch; it also needs to keep in mind all those who chose not to engage. Many of those people have intentionally opted out.

- September 5, 2010

When the entire brand team understands these events are promotions intended to generate publicity they can be a good thing. But when employed as a source of free ideas where strategy takes a back seat to cuteness and personal taste, they can become an enormous waste of time and energy. Like many of marketing's next-big-things, it is a fad that will run its course and then everyone will get back to work. As the saying goes, anything that is free is usually worth what you pay for it.

Lowell Wallace, Managing Partner, Marketing Valuation Partners LLC - September 5, 2010

Crowdsourcing is a gamechanger. Gone are the days of those expensive suits. Advertising agencies, consultants, and market researchers face obsolescence as the crowd continues to out-innovative, out-create, and out-promote.Companies are now looking outside their organizations walls for their next big idea. It's time to embrace the shift to a level global playing field.

Justin levy, Founder, Yinzit - September 5, 2010

There's nothing inherently good or bad. It depends on what you do with it. The way it is being used seems to take it that advertising and design don't involve any expertise. For a telling comment please visit http://chintarao.blogspot.com/2010/06/no-safety-in-numbers.html

Chintamani Rao - September 5, 2010

It's difficult to think of a context where engaging customers in a strategic - versus flippant - way could be a negative. To those who might view it as "cheapening the design process," the client marketing leadership is ultimately responsible for outlining brand/design strategy and accepting only work - from whatever source - that clears the hurdle. If that work comes from outside the incumbent agency, hey, it's a brave new world. And for those in the agency business who realize that "Mad Men" is about the world of advertising 40 years ago, today's reality is that brand custodians are inside, not outside, the company. Their job is profitable growth and brand sustainability - when agencies get that and partner with their clients to make it happen, their jobs are more sustainable as well.

Steve Biggerstaff, Founding Partner, Sago Road Growth Co. - September 5, 2010

Apple is a classic case of someone who has managed "crowdsourcing" brilliantly. Even before the baby was born(ipad), millions of bloggers and fans had a "considered' view on the shape, features and what it should be called. I understand they recceived the equivalent of $400mn in media exposure before the first unit made its appearance.
So crowdsourcing is neither good nor bad nor cheap. Its another engagement tool. You can use it well, badly or brilliantly.

ramesh jude thomas, president - September 7, 2010

I'm not sure about crowdsourcing cheapening brands, but I know that brands are cheapening the authentic, original idea of crowdsourcing of a means of political engagement.

Judy Turner-Blain, Creative Director - September 8, 2010

It will depend a lot on the brand personality for whether it will cheapen the brand.
in my opinion it will give a lot of insights for the brand on its current image perceived by the crowd and will help the company to design its steps based on creative/isolated inputs from the individuals of crowd to broadened the campaign.

Vishal, Group Product Manager, Pharma (Dr Reddy's) - September 12, 2010

Crowd sourcing for commercial gain is simply naf. Fun yes, but what's behind it is one dimensional. Let's not abuse the current trend for people to belong to something bigger than the self just to flog products. Lets harness collective wisdom instead through another means of crowd sourcing for long lasting contruibution as well as action. There's clever ways to evolve crowd sourcing to more altruistic causes (such as EarthHour) Can brands partner more with social justice movements/charities so that society can put their energies into long term benefits for our planet than just selling prroducts? How about brain sourcing - harness the great minds of this world to solve some of the greatest problems. Move over colonial states, there's a new way to think and act but loets do it with purpose and intent.

Catherine, Communications manager, Rise Communications - September 12, 2010

The judgement call on the efficacy of any UGC is its strategic intent and execution. In case of categories such as FMCG wherein the consumer interact with the brand like say Knorr would be apt for UGC. However if it is more premium or designer in nature, say a Hugo Boss, it would go against the whole premise of the brand.UGC can sometimes alienate people who are not participants to the program. Example in India: Lays vote for your flavor, where 3 shortlisted consumers had their faces on 3 flavor packs.As with any UGC the PR angle is strong.But does the mainstream consumer really care!! Except the participant consumers in the whole selection process, it would be wasted on others, and the confident sore losers...might never like the brand again.

Sachin Rao, Marketing Manager (India) - September 15, 2010

Let us get straight to the point. This forum can also minimally be seen as a type of crowd-sourcing, looking for comments on a specific topic without knowing who is going to say what. Guess what happened! We ended up having really thoughtful comments, along with irrelevant “London links” and “Canada goose” things! Ludicrous, if you say so. Same thing happens in other types of crowd-sourcing done by brands. They either end up with really innovative ideas, or completely irrelevant thoughts. It is the brand manager who needs to know the difference, and which ones he/she needs to include or not. As always, crowd-sourcing does not cheapen the brand, it is the decision maker whose wisdom will guide on choosing the right elements from crowd-sourcing.

Khandoker Mahmudur Rahman, Assistant Professor, United International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh - September 17, 2010

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