It seems that crowdsourcing finally has earned itself some street cred. Brands, big and small can’t ignore the value proposition any longer. Unilever was “overwhelmed with the level of entries and range of high-quality ideas pitched” for their Peperami crowdsourcing campaign with IdeaBounty. Today the NY Times extolled the virtues of the new Pure Digital “Do You Flip?” campaign where Flip Camera users’ videos are used in ads.
Crowdsourcing is a powerful way to connect with consumers, develop and create fresh, inspired content and get people emotionally invested in a brand or product. Everyone seems to agree. What no one will agree on just yet is quality, and what’s “good enough.” Understandably, it seems like people and businesses who make a living off of the old process of creating content have one of two quick reactions to crowdsourcing: 1) quick to dismiss it as amateur, or 2) quick to embrace it with a caveat: it’s a “nice” compliment to what the “experts” do, Great for a YouTube channel, but not for broadcast, leave that to the “experts.”
So, what are the “experts” capable of? Sometimes, absolute brilliance. Sometimes. More often than not, we get something terribly average and less than memorable. The one thing that we always get is a big price tag.
Will bombarding consumers with super high production quality, indistinguishable and expensive ads make them more effective because of their quality? Did anyone go out and get DirecTV because Fergie sang her way through every commercial break during the MLB playoffs? Five years ago, the brand could have proclaimed success by proclaiming the benefit awareness and subconscious effect of that ad on repeat. After all, I’m blogging about Fergie and DirecTV. I tend to think that’s not just not going to be good enough anymore in the era of the social web. All those ads did was make me resent Fergie and Direct TV, and now I can bitch about it to everyone.
LendingTree was thrilled with the execution and potential of the Runaway Mattress spot developed on Tongal. We think it’s good enough. Could it be better? Sure. More professional? Sure. What can’t be? How valuable was the engagement, participation and enthusiasm surrounding its creation? Hard to say, but I think that the latter matters more, even though there is not yet an established metric to value it. What you can value is the price tag. By embracing crowdsourcing, LendingTree has the ability to buy 25 mattress ads for what a 30-second spot costs and get thousands of people involved in their creation. Will the “quality” be good enough? Does the “quality” matter?
More important, who does the “quality” matter to? Does it matter to the agency? Does it justify the high price tag? Does it matter to the brand? To justify how much they’re paying the agency? Ultimately what we should be asking is, does it matter to the consumer? Is it creating an emotional experience? Is it resonating?
What do you think?
