"You’ve got access to a global creative department of 4 billion people"
— Steve Henry, Exec Creative Director at TBWA
People have always said that you should listen to your customer. Well, with the advent of Web 2.0 technologies, firms are taking this advice literally. I mentioned a while ago that I expected to see more and more "user generated" marketing efforts (still waiting for the exchange). This Superbowl will have 3 ads that have their origin from the masses but with different approaches. Some are running contests for ideas and then will unleash their professional resources on creating a glossy version. Another is running a contest and plans to air the actual spot created by the winner. This approach has be recently labelled "Crowdsourcing" which is kinda like open source for marketing.
TBWA has launched The Big What Adventure at TBWALabs where you can submit ideas for their different clients ranging from campaigns to events. It looks like their first exercise is wrapping up as it is next to impossible to chase down the submission page and it looks like sending in an email with the idea (not very socially friendly…) is the current solution while they revamp the website.
If any of you come across interesting "Crowdsourcing" models or companies, let me know as I have an interest in seeing if someone can make this work. The challenges are getting clients to sign up (agency based…which means getting agencies on-board), getting people to submit and finally putting the tools in place to that the exchange isn’t laced with every wild-haired scheme under the sun.