Nothing grabs your attention like the word “manifesto”, huh? Settle in kiddies, I’ve been stewing and pondering this all weekend, and after getting smacked in the head this morning with yet more “big company turns to crowdsourcing for their advertising needs” I’ve decided that instead of just make fun of it and declare that the sky is falling I would take some kind of action. I’d write a blog post!… err… yeah, a different kind of blog post. One that outlines my (and I’m sure many other’s) concerns and then addresses these issues and proposes solutions the quickly growing group of crowdsourcing “agencies” can do to make sure they’re not just exploiting an already depressed market. So grab some popcorn ‘cos here we go. (this is a long one, if you want to skip down to the bottom line, just click here)

Why crowdsourcing is not like answering an RFP

When I discuss this topic with people it inevitably comes back to this point. So I’m going to derail it right off the bat so we can move on. When an agency responds to an RFP (Request For Pitch, for those of you who were wondering), yes they provide work to a client for free in hope of getting paid. That’s where the similarities end. Enjoy the following bulleted list of how this is not like crowdsourced creative:

  • Agencies are competing for an ongoing paying relationship.  99.9% of the time this freebie ends up making them way more than they put up to make it, because they win a contract for ongoing work. Work they charge normal rate for.

Wasn’t that an awesome list?!? Answering an RFP is not like winning a cash prize. Answering an RFP is giving something to prove that you’re a good fit for an ongoing relationship with a brand. The people responding have researched and spent time to learn about the brand, and are giving away an idea to prove they will be good care takers of the brand as they work to expand it, over a period of months and years. They also, with rare exceptions, aren’t competing against everyone who thinks they have a good idea. RFPs are sent out to a small group, so the client can actually look at all the responses.  It is not like winning a contest with a one time prize against everyone with a computer and photoshop elements or a Flip camera.

Crowdsourcing vs Outsourcing

In the last few days, I’ve had some interesting conversations with a few different tech and software dev guys about crowdsourcing and they brought the conversation around to outsourcing. This makes sense because all things tech seemed to be destined to live in Bombay a few years ago, as tons of jobs moved from the US to India. Now this isn’t to say that I don’t understand why this happened, and I’m not saying that crowdsourcing is the next outsourcing. In the tech jobs to India instance I understand that employees here were asking for more than the market would bear for their services, and the lower cost of living in India made highly educated people cheaper to employ there. I don’t agree with this, but I understand it (angry commenters please note the difference). Here’s where the two differ: crowdsourcing is trying to enter the market for creative talent by bypassing professionals and going straight to amateurs. They’re selling amateur talent at cut rate prices in an attempt to lower the going rate of professional talent. They can do this because people are (for the moment) convinced that amateur creative work is more “authentic” than professional. I submit to you New Coke, an idea that tested like gang-busters as an argument against this idea.

This is really a simple bait and switch. Like promising you a crate of bananas but then giving you a crate of plantains. Sure they both look like bananas, but one is very much not a banana.  This isn’t simply shifting the market for creative talent to a place where that talent can be got cheaper (outsourcing), this is flooding the market with a lower quality product to lower prices of talent across the board. I’m sorry amateurs, but you are the Sorny to our Sony. The same would be true of us if we tried to roll into your office and do what you do for a living on the weekends.

Please don’t think this is some kind of conspiracy theory, it’s simply greed going unchecked. The fact that talented creative directors and agency professionals are participating in this to try and cash in on the trend makes me sick. Thanks for selling the rest of us out.

The New Rules for Crowdsourcing Creative

The following are the rules all Crowsourcing “agencies” should abide by, and the conditions which all crowdsourced talent should demand to work under.

  1. All work not purchased shall remain the sole intellectual property of it’s creator, across all media, for any reason, for perpetuity or until the rights holder chooses to give up those rights, and shall not be used for any reason without the express permission of the rights holder or without suitable compensation to the rights holder.
  2. Agencies should attempt to foster ongoing relationships between creatives/creative teams that would best represent the client’s interest. Much like an RFP, the value in speculative work is in the relationship that results in long term gains for both, not short term gains.
  3. A distinction should be made between professional and amateur work. This distinction would not block any very talented amateur from being seen and breaking into the industry, but it would keep professional work from being drowned out by lower quality work and/or sold as amateur work.
  4. After costs are covered by the agency, the majority of the money paid for the campaign being crowdsourced should go to the crowd.
  5. Crowdsourcing communities should exist as networking communities for the members of the crowd between each other and clients. This means no clauses in client contracts that prohibit direct contact between a member of the crowd and the client, if initiated by the client. This is the only way the promise of “being seen” is a legitimate one.

The Bottom Line

I love social media. I love that it makes the distance between us all, which was already being closed by the rest of the internet, that much smaller. For creatives, professional and amateur, it allows us to meet, learn and collaborate with each other. To start projects and businesses that we wouldn’t have been able to start a few years ago.

What I don’t like is the idea that another middle man has sprung up between the client and the talent. I don’t like seeing people exploited. I don’t like watching people trying to turn my industry into a commodity. And in a time when jobs are scarce and people are desperate, I don’t like seeing the power this new technology has being used to take advantage of people, who either need the money so badly they’re willing to take the risk to work for free, or people who want in to the club so badly that they’re willing to give away their talent and hard work for a chance.

The power of crowdsourcing in creative isn’t in generating huge pools of ideas on the cheap. We’ve been able to do that for years with surveys and focus groups. The true power of crowdsourcing in the creative industry is in it’s ability to create teams of people that will be able to work across any distance and timezone, in the ability to recruit strong talent from a pool that is larger than ever before. But these people need to be paid, as professionals, when their work is being used for profit. Crowdsourcing is more useful than as a means to get ideas for cheap, and the first company that realizes this will always have the biggest crowd to draw from.