Are your fans passionate enough about your brand that they would make your ads for you? If you are Etsy, than the answer is yes thanks to their Handmade Moment contest. I don’t know about you, but if I saw this on TV, I would have never guessed it was “Handmade.”
Tags: crowdsourcing, etsy
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 7:02 am and is filed under Brands I Love, Digital Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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The opinions shared in this space do not represent the opinions of my employer.
This is a rare example of a high quality outcome.
I've been following the crowd-sourcing model for creative for two years now. And I've even tried out a crowd for a client project. If you are going to try crowdsourcing you really need to keep a few things in mind:
1) The crowd wants to create. Few if any will care about your brand promise, position, and personality.
2) The crowd can give you lots of ideas, but it is your job and a lot of work to go through them all and decide if they suit your brand.
3) If you don't know your brand, you are at risk of the creative ultimately determining your strategy, a serious marketing misstep.
4) Find the right crowd. The very nature of Etsy, and the loyalty of its visitors is a great breeding ground for quality creative design. Don't assume quality from any crowd.
5) Some tasks, like naming a company or product, can be inspired by a crowd but few of them are also going to do your trademark due diligence or check for cultural or linguistic issues. Same goes for ensuring that your logo isn't infringing on another design.
6) Beware of those who are gaming the system. Some crowdsourcing sites allow the crowd to pick the winner. "Gaming" is when members strategically vote their ideas to win. I saw this happen last year on a naming site.
7) Crowdsourcing upsets a lot of professional service providers, especially on LinkeIn. Whenever somebody on LinkedIn offers a prize for a name or logo, passionate professionals, be they namers or designers or others, will jump in and get upset at the contest holder. It doesn't help your brand to have these folks getting vocal at you on Linkedin.
So by all means try crowdsourcing, but remember it can't replace the hard work required to build a successful brand.
All great points. My belief is that crowdsourcing / co-creation is a way to let your most passionate fans be heard. That's why this works so well for Etsy and also explains the success companies like Bud Light have seen through programs on XLNT Ads. In my opinion, crowdsourcing should never be a shortcut to great branding and it doesnt replace your agency partners. But if you have a great brand with a mass of equally great fans, then this is a way to tap into their passion.
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