Crowdsourcing has been around for a couple of years now not only in video production, but across all industries. The buzzword refers to a 2006 Wired magazine article about outsourcing to a crowd as opposed to a single individual or company.
When a business needs a certain project or commercial done, instead of sending RFP’s to different video production companies, the organization turns to the online community in search for talent and ideas. There are two advantages to using this approach. First, it allows the company to tap into a huge pool of creativity from a wide range of backgrounds. Second, it typically lends itself to an incredible amount of bids on the project, allowing for a business to select talent based on the bid amount, thereby keeping costs down.
Doritos employs this technique often and is, quite possibly, the most effective out of any other company. Lead by the creative strategy of Goodby Silverstein and Partners (GSP) in 2006-2007, Doritos has created some of the most inspiring Super Bowls adds by relying on its consumers to promote its products by way of challenging the public to come up with creative TV commercials. GSP then watched – over the course of five days – the 6,200 videos that had been entered into the contest until they had narrowed the field down to their five favorite, which were then posted online for a month-long voting contest.
When it was time for the Big Game, each of the five contestants were flown to the Super Bowl – this was a deliberate move to keep the suspense going for as long as possible, making it so that none of the “final five” would know who the winner was until the ad was aired during the game. This was a memorable moment for sure, and has gone a long way in fueling the fire of the Super Bowl Ad sensation.
Crowdsourcing for Doritos has been a huge success – so much so that they still employ their ‘Crash the Super Bowl’ campaign every year. It’s a smart move and keeps their customers extremely close to their brand. While this may not work for small, lesser-known companies, the rewards can be tremendous for already-established brands.
Interested in learning more about what strategies will work best for your company? Give us a call! Customizing and strategizing based on the needs of our clients is what sets us apart from the rest!