In booze news, the Aussie wine company Yellow Tail is holding a
contest to find a name for its newest make of chardonnay. Winos can submit their suggestions through December 9, and the winner will receive a free shipment of the new beverage. Kind of cool, right?
Depends on who you ask. This idea-fishing technique is known as
crowdsourcing, and it's an issue of some debate among creative types. As the same suggests, crowdsourcing is like outsourcing to the general public—every time a company holds a branding or design contest, they're taking away a job from a creative professional.
And of course crowdsourcing is much cheaper for the companies that use it, as Wired.com, the website that actually coined the term once upon a time,
pointed out in March. Prizes for the winning crowdsourcees are usually $200 or less—or, hey, maybe just a bottle a wine—which is a huge savings compared to the thousands companies would otherwise be doling out to professional marketing and design firms. Worse, submitters whose ideas are not picked get absolutely nothing for their efforts; it's the equivalent of working a "spec" job in design, a concept that is rather shunned.
To me, crowdsourcing is like the reality television of branding and design. Why hire expensive actors when there are millions of people lining up for makeovers, blind dates, elimination challenges, and so on? I mean, reality television is good every once in a while (example: Top Chef), but it's always very refreshing to return to a program scripted by a team of professional writers, who are able to provide a level of depth I just can't get from Tila Tequila.
What do you think of crowdsourcing? Got any good chardonnay names?Image Source
Comments (3)
I see this as a PR stunt to generate articles such as this one, and as a marketing ploy to make customers feel involved in the brand.
I am not against stunts and ploys, but I don't consider them crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing can be used as a strategic approach to tapping into the wisdom of the crowds. It can be used for complex software development, generating deep information resources. It is a lot more than a naming competition.
My wine name suggestion is 'Supermarket Special'
They should name their new wine LePuke, i have tried their wines and i was not impressed i still have a bottle on the shelf 3/4 full collecting dust. I should probably just pour it out. Im not impressed with Aussie alcohol products, ever had a Fosters beer? Fosters, Australian for crocodile piss. Come to think of it crocodile piss might be an improvement.
Really interesting thoughts here. I have been turned off by many design contests (logos especially) because of the notion that it is one of the causes of the devaluing of creative professionals in today's workplace. A company offering a "prize" of $250 or $500 to have hundreds of submissions deserves to be humiliated. On the other hand, if it is not a marketing ploy but more of a way to engage its community, I think crowdsourcing creative efforts can be an amazing opportunity. See threadless or Mass Animation for examples.