Jeff Howe Didn’t Mean To Be An Asshole
I briefly met Jeff Howe during the kickoff party for his book Crowdsourcing. He’s a good guy. Very charming, very intelligent. It’s not his fault he’s an asshole, having coined the term “crowdsourcing”.
I read an opinion piece on PSFK today by well-known author, blogger, critic, and fabled ad man, George Parker. In it, he pretty much lambasted the Boulder, CO-based agency, Victors & Spoils, for further perpetuating the argument of “What are agencies for?” To their credit, however, according to @BBHLabs, they’ve already gotten 5 letters from Fortune 200 CMOs in the first few days of them opening their doors.
The great debate of the effects of crowdsourcing on ad agencies is something I’ve always been fairly agnostic about. I was always a supporter of Jeff Howe, so I didn’t immediately write it off as the bane of creative agencies. But after hearing George Parker’s criticisms of Victors & Spoils, I think I might have to side with the agencies. And it’s not because I think agency creatives would be out of a job otherwise. There’s more to the argument than that.
First off, crowdsourcing your work does NOT guarantee quality product. Fast Company’s Cliff Kuang published a piece that took a look at some of the mediocre work that has come from crowdsourced efforts. I’m not suggesting that crowdsourced work can’t be good. And I’m not saying that it doesn’t help in shining light on many talented people who might otherwise be overlooked. Honestly, at its core, I don’t believe crowdsourcing, as a marketing vehicle, is such a bad idea. It promotes consumer interaction; celebrates their creativity; and all that other good stuff we like to say about the benefits of crowdsourcing.
Where I’ve decided to put my foot down is exactly where Victors & Spoils has decided to venture: crowdsourcing all of your work as a creative ad agency. I was impressed by the attention that they’ve been getting, but after further thought, I’m not so sure it’s well-deserved. Under this business model, can they legitimately call themselves a creative ad agency? I’m not so sure. If anything, an agency of producers and project managers sounds more apropos. Isn’t that what they essentially boil down to? And that’s the problem that Parker cited in this business model.
If you act as though getting agency quality work is as easy as logging onto crowdSPRING, then what the hell are we being hired for? Clients have their own project managers to oversee crowdsourced initiatives if they really wanted to. I don’t think the creative ad agency will go the way of the Dodo, especially considering there’s simply a different grade of work you get from dealing with “accredited” (for lack of a better word) creatives. I just think that it’s a bit pretentious to put yourself on a high horse and label yourself as forward-thinking when in reality, you aren’t doing any of the heavy lifting.
Having started my career at a creative digital agency, I naturally have a high respect for the work that goes into agency developed creative. I don’t think agency creatives have anything to worry about. Out of work art directors and copywriters aside, the best either already work for someone, or consider themselves too good to essentially work for free. And for those designers who do compete in crowdsourcing competitions, it’s a good way to get noticed, and perhaps find yourself with a job where you don’t have to forfeit valuable hours of your time contending with dozens of other designers working for nothing.
I’ll leave you with this comment from V&S’ announcement blog post:
You guys are kidding right?
You are not changing an industry you are helping hammer one more nail in its coffin. For years we fought the idea of advertising by committee and you are legitimizing it.
You are not calling creatives with spirit you are calling all those willing to be underpaid while you guys reap the rewards.
As John Lennon said, “How do you sleep at night?”
3 Comments
anibal
11/04/2009You’re right, crowdsourcing is not new and V&S certainly did not invent it. Yet I am not sure I agree with your point of view. Let me explain why.
First, you are talking about crowdsourcing not having the ability to deliver a quality product. That’s true. But let’s put things in perspective here. One of the main reasons why this industry gets so much heat and talking down is because, whether we love it or hate it, most of the work is shitty. Period. That’s the reason why everytime you go to a conference or a creative talk, the examples of great work are always about the same usual suspects. That’s why most agencies spend so much time admiring and adoring the work that a few do instead of their own. The sad truth is that most of the advertising out there sucks. Now, that’s also the reason why I believe these types of initiatives are good for what we do. Change is needed and since no one has nailed the right model, there is nothing wrong with trying.
I believe this industry truly masters the art of criticizing, yet it sucks when it comes to actually innovating and embracing failure, to set an example by doing and stop just preaching fancy words in paper. The art director and copywriter marriage got a lot of fire when it was first proposed but hey, it is always dark before the sun comes out. 15 years ago R/GA decided to go against the wave. Look where they are now. Look where digital is now.
Second. You’re asking if V&S can legitimately call themselves a creative ad agency? Well, I don’t know about you but I do believe creative is an attitude, not a discipline. So then why are we hired? Well, the truth is that for nothing that a dozen of smart guys at an in house agency can’t do. No matter what excuses we might say. The goal is to produce great work – that works – and there is no really a size that fits at all here.
Long story short, crowdsourcing might not be the answer. True. But I do respect those who have the guts to embrace failure and try something different from time to time. It is easy criticize but hard to take risks.
How can they sleep at night? I guess the same way that the big agencies with inflated production and man-hours fee driven models do. In peace. It’s all relative.
Crowdsourcing a Discussion on Crowdsourcing: Agency Nil, Anomaly and Victors & Spoils | eyecube
11/05/2009[...] and George Parker sounds off on Victors & Spoils via PSFK here. Other great takes include Amadeo Plaza of Crayon on V&S and Contagious takes a look at V&S here. BBH Labs on Agency Nil here and [...]
Ken
02/08/2012Personally, I love the idea of crowsourcing creative. Having spent most of my career as an art director, I have a great deal of respect for the discipline and for the talent that is required to produce great work. As anibal stated, most of the advertising out there in the world is crap, and a vast majority of it was created by agency folks like me. So why does it suck? Mostly because of time pressure and lack of inspiration. When you are one of just a few creatives assigned to an account you tend to get tunnel vision on that client. You can lose perspective and quite honestly, you lose passion for the product. So, on any given day, you hammer out some creative stuff, but all-in-all it isn’t mind blowing and it isn’t going to change the world — but, it makes the client happy, which makes the account folks happy and everybody wins — sort of.
Crowdsourcing the creative brings in a ton of fresh ideas and perspectives of the same problem. Plus, it brings in the element of direct competition to inspire the creative process. What agency didn’t bust its nuts to come up with some awesome creative to win an account? Hell, I’ve been in agencies where the whole f-ing creative department pulled together to put together some killer work to wow a prospect. But once the account was in the house, a lot of that drive is lost – but not when you crowdsource. Every project is a new pitch, and that is what keeps the creativity going. Sure, if you only want to pay $50 for a branding campaign, you’ll get mega-crap. But when the reward makes the effort justifiable, you’ll get designers moving mountains to win the project and the creative executions will be way better than an AD and a copywriter could come up will on most days.
In summary, crowsourcing is capitalism at its best. A crappy reward will result in crappy work. But if you let competition drive the process, then the better the rewards, the better the quality of work. And when you have dozens of talented creatives working on a problem, you’ll get significantly better results than any in-house or agency team any day of the week. Guaranteed.