Occasionally a topic comes up that inspires a longer post with commentary and viewpoints beyond my own. With so much talk recently about crowdsourcing it seemed like a good time to really tackle the issue. I’m positively thrilled to have input from some of the top minds in advertising and marketing communications contribute to this post. I want to thank Johnny Vulkan, Cliff Lewis, Evan Fry & Aaron Bateman who provided thoughtful commentary to this post as well as those who I have linked to for adding their insight to the discussion. I encourage you to print it out, bookmark, and of course share it with others.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CROWDSOURCING

It's all his fault

If it seems like you’ve been hearing a lot about crowdsourcing lately, it’s because you have.  Crowdsourcing is one of those buzz words, like synergy or viral that people are throwing around now to cover just about anything.  According to Wikipedia, the term was coined in a June 2006 Wired magazine article by Jeff Howe.

My first experience with the concept came when I participated in The Beast, the Alternate Reality Game tied to the Steven Spielberg movie, A.I., back in 2001. As a member of the 6,000+ strong  Cloudmakers group, I joined fans from across the world to solve puzzles and interact within this fantastic fictional world. We worked together to create a ‘collective detective’ that competed against the puzzle makers, not against each other, and it was brilliant.

And now crowdsourcing is very much in vogue. Howe took the concept and ran with it, turning it into a book, as did James Surowiecki with his tome, The Wisdom of Crowds.

THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY EMBRACES CROWDSOURCING

Crowdsourcing is gaining steam within the advertising agency community at the same time as another issue becomes more pressing - the broken agency business model. Shops big and small, from a variety of industries (ad, PR, digital) are all looking to do things differently. Earlier this year Agency Nil took a bold stand with their “Will work for all it’s worth” manifesto. That was followed by the recent launch of Victors & Spoils, which somewhat boldly bills itself as The world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles.

PSFK has more on Agency Nil here, 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 here. You can read my interview with Alex Bogusky of CP+B and Hank Leber, founder of Agency Nil, here regarding agency business models. The Proffesional Artists League is taking a pretty strong stand against Work-for-Hire which can be interpreted as crowdsourcing. Take a look at their POV here.

AdAge is currently running a poll (through Nov. 6) asking if crowdsourcing is a threat to agencies.

BRANDS JOIN IN ON THE ACTION

I’m excited to see really smart people like the ones at AN and V&S make bold moves like this. Creative industries need this sort of thinking to keep them from stagnating. But here’s where it gets interesting. If you’re going to crowdsource, why does the client even need a middle man like V&S? Mountain Dew seems to have asked that question and come up with the answer: They don’t.

As part of their Dewmocracy campaign, the fizzy beverage is crowdsourcing their new TV ad. From the website:

Mountain Dew asked their biggest fans to band together and create the next DEW, from the flavors to the TV ads. Now’s your chance to get involved.

1) Create A DEW Spot
Direct, shoot and edit a 12-second DEW spot that shows off your skills.

2) Upload it
Your 12-second video must be submitted here by 11.30.09

3) Cross Your Fingers
Approved videos will be added to the gallery to be voted on by DEW fans. When voting closes, the six leading submissions will be revealed. In the end, three finalists will be selected to receive funding for a :15 TV DEW spot.

Once again the indespensible PSFK has more here. From the PSFK piece:

The brand insists this initiative will not impact its relationship with agency of record BBDO Worldwide, who has been involved with Dewmocracy from the start and will continue to play an important role in the process.

I don’t think this is a threat to BBDO, but is it a threat to V&S?

Apparently this whole crowdsource thing is a big hit with the junk food crowd as Snickers is in on the action as well. [Disclosure, my agency, Taylor, does some work with Mars, but is not involved with this project]. Another crowdsource effort comes from Genesis Today, who will award $10,000 for a good Social Media idea.

After the jump, insight from principals at Agency Nil, Victors & Spoils and Anomaly as well as agency biz model gadfly Agency Future.

INSIGHT FROM INDUSTRY LEADERS

Here’s what Cliff Lewis, Executive Producer and Creative Resource Director at Agency Nil, had to say about crowdsourcing:

“Crowdsourcing” is the new creative mantra, the “curator” the new CD. The

The Agency Nil mantra

perception is that the crowd will give you the answer at a fraction of the cost. That may well turn out to be the case – occasionally and for the right task. I don’t believe the crowd will always get it right but I do think the crowd has an important role when used correctly. It forces agencies into a new era of real collaboration and to re-evaluate their process and their value.

Established agencies have to come to terms with giving up some territory and realise that actually, the crowd is an extremely attractive resource.

Shops like AgencyNil are well positioned with fluidity and access to quality talent. With clients attracted to their low overhead value proposition, they may find themselves affordable brand “curators”.

Agency Nil is looking to utilize crowdsourcing themselves with a call to action for an agency manifesto video.

 Evan Fry, CCO of Victors & Spoils, shared his thoughts as well:

 Question: How does crowdsourcing directly by brands affect established agencies, and how does it affect shops like V&S?

 Evan Fry: A brand going straight to the crowd with a given marketing assignment is exciting for everyone. It’s exciting for established ad shops because it’s interesting and fascinating to see what the community is going to come up with. Ideally it’s not a threat to established shops because they realize that their strengths lie in strategy and wholistic brand handling and product solutions, the whole thing.

But if what the crowd is coming up with is satisfying for the brand and it’s costing less, then it could probably be stressful for established agencies if a given brand decides to crowdsource everything and pull an account. As far as V&S is concerned, brands going straight to the crowd fascinates us too. If they do it to a point where they feel 100% satisfied with their crowd’s output, they wouldn’t need us just like they wouldn’t need an established shop.

Because we too have strengths in strategy and complete brand/company guidance. But for us right now it’s testament to just how compelling it is. The more brands that do it, the more we think crowdsourcing’s current pluses and minuses will be exposed. We believe we can minimize the minuses while plusing the pluses.

Eyecube: What role can a shop like V&S play in collaborating with consumers on behalf of brands?

EF: We offer the role of feeling just like a regular ad agency for their relationship and points of contact. We feel like an ad agency. But we work with the crowd, guide the crowd, keep them on strategy and on brand for the client. And deliver to the client a shaped crowd solution. So we play the role of the familiar trusted agency partner for the brand. While using the power of the people and the magic that can bring to deliver the most relevant solutions where their customer base and culture at large feels ownership and love because they helped make it.

Eyecube: Does crowdsourcing directly with the public work better for some aspects rather than others? For instance, are you more likely to get better copy or art from consumers?

EF: I think it’s too early to tell. And as we adapt and evolve the early interpretations of how crowdsourcing currently works we can build in ways for anything to work really smoothly. Right now, the existing models seem to work best when you carve up tasks so that they are fairly straightforward. Those kinds of things can work pretty well. If it gets to multiple levels with a complex task, you have to have someone with the vision for the project and the brand wrangling it all and making sure each piece fits seamlessly.

So right now, things like logos work pretty well. Or really pointed tasks such as name a car color or code a simple website can work great. Putting together an entire product launch or something like a pitch or helping a company “get into social media” requires shaping and direction. But we’re figuring this all out as we go just like everybody else. We hope to help it all evolve and help the whole thing be better understood, better used and better leveraged.

New Biz Model Vets

Johnny Vulkan of groundbreaking agency Anomaly  is no stranger to unique business models. Here he shares his thoughts on crowdsourcing as an agency model:

I think it’s an exciting experiment and the calibre of the people involved is great so I expect good things. As a company who launched with a desire to test new ways of working, creating and making a business from that I obviously instinctively commend any group of people who do the same.

[Eyecube: Can crowdsourcing work as a business model?]…the very honest answer is I don’t know. I think crowd-sourcing as a behavior is a wonderful by-product of what technology has enabled us to do. As a continuous feedback loop ‘the crowd’ provides insight, data, and a vocal audience for any company to be accountable to. It’s raising the bar on everything and that’s a good thing. Smart businesses and their brands are already harnessing that by conversing in an open way, modifying their take on customer service and feeding that back into the products and services they make. There have also been examples where crowd-sourcing has been used to create communications back to the crowd – Doritos being the most written about. 

I don’t think it works for everything though and curation, editing and definitive personal opinion are vital. I think the recent ‘elect the jury’ concept is a case in point. Jimmy Wales and Clay Shirkey were languishing in the lower leagues while the top few names on the list were Global Creative Directors of large networks the last time I checked. Is this the wisdom of crowds or a response to company all staff email that creates that effect? Things get gamed and in the process some bits of genius may get overlooked. The future of the communications industry may be a more interesting one if people like Jimmy and Clay got to voice their opinions in that forum but that will take an individual decision to elevate them if they are unwilling to use the front page of Wikipedia or the NYU database to help them.

There have been experiments with co-written books, co-written films and co-written experiences that have sourced widely but they are yet to beat the creative vision of ‘Blade Runner’, ‘Shawshank Redemption’ or even ‘CSI’. We will see something soon I’m sure but it will be a rarity rather than a normality.

I realize this isn’t the ‘crowd sourced’ agency model but I think it is a watch out. Volume doesn’t always equate to quality and you are frequently faced with the overwhelming paradox of choice. There are also legal mine fields to navigate. For example at Chiat if someone sent in an Absolut ad idea it was immediately returned as if a concept ran that was similar there was a chance of legal action. You can say that is not ‘open’ and short sighted – but while the communications industry has embraced open source the legal industry is still a little way further behind.

It’s also hard to do with clients who require NDAs. We have several in place covering everything from new beverages to new technology… we can’t even tell everyone in our own office, let alone take the conversation broader.

But, it is going to be right for some people and for some occasions and if there are enough of them it is going to be a great business. We’ll use it, as will others, but it won’t become a default option. The future is not about absolutes. There are going to be many models, many paths and many businesses. There is no one size fits all but I do think the latest ventures are fascinating ones and they have the talent and will to succeed so I suspect they will.

The CEO of Agency Nil, sees things through the lens of his time at P&G:

People seem to be wowed about what Mountain Dew are doing….but isn’t this process what marketers have always done?

Consider this….P&G poll consumers in huge numbers, have focus groups, have fictitious products in baskets of goods, show different ads to would be consumers, use data in multiple ways in an effort to get into the purchasing intent and likely demand of would be consumers…and to create the best product, packaging, commercials, smells, flavors…you name it….they plug into consumers throughout the process….it starts at the concept stage and rolls all the way through from packaging to consumption….they have ALWAYS done this….

What is Mountain Dew doing that it hasn’t done before? There seem to be three key differences – 1) they are using more consumers than usual while calling it ‘crowd sourcing’ instead of marketing….2) they are making the process public….and 3) they are paying an agency to produce the creative for the crowd sourcing Dewmocracy angle instead of the creative work for the new product itself….is there a difference?

Aaron Bateman runs the Agency Future blog and works for Advance. He’s a student of agency business models and is an astute observer of the changes taking place in the industry. Here’s what he had to say regarding crowdsourcing and agency models:

Eyecube: Should we judge V&S and Agency Nil based on their success, or should we simply applaud them for having the courage to try something new?

Aaron Bateman: Both, I say. It takes guts to do what they’re doing. Not to mention complete conviction. But the litmus test is if they’re still around in a year, two years etc. My personal feeling is that they are agencies for the here and now. I have reservations about the longevity of the model, but if they get the business basics right they’ll probably be able to stick around.

Ultimately the best agencies – the ones that endure societal and economic fluctuations – are those that can adapt to their environment (to paraphrase someone a lot smarter than me). The closing of Cliff Freeman perhaps demonstrates what happens to agencies that capture the zeitgeist but then maybe don’t evolve.

 Eyecube: What’s the one problem with crowdsourcing that people aren’t addressing?

AB: I have a very personal opinion on this that is at odds with most of the people I’ve talked to about the subject. Essentially, I wonder where genuine visionaries fit in in a crowdsourced future. I think there’s a danger that an over-reliance on the crowd can be detrimental to the careers of genuinely truly creative souls.

When faced with thirty creative solutions that riff around the same idea, how many ad buyers would be brave enough to pick the one that’s completely off the wall? I guess I’m saying there’s a risk of some kind of collective groupthink that marginalises the real talent.

Eyecube: What do you think about Mtn Dew and Snickers going straight to consumers to crowdsource commercials, skipping agencies altogether?

AB: A great way of generating one-off ads/campaigns that cut through and generate buzz. My question is what happens next. Do brands crowdsource strategic partners too? I wonder if there’s a danger of a brand losing a sense of direction in some kind of constant quest to be flavour of the month. Of course, the idea presents a challenge to agencies already under pressure to justify their fees. If it helps sort the wheat from the chaff, then great.

Here’s a great little piece over at Gizmodo which illustrates the benefits of a strong client-agency realtionship. Steve Jobs thought the name iMac was horrendous, and in fact had come up with his own idea for a name that apparently was so bad, the entire universe would have collapsed in on itself had it been used. But ultimately Jobs trusted TBWA/Chiat/Day and went with iMac. I just don’t think crowdsourcing is going to achieve that level of trust.

For my money, crowdsourcing is an exciting development, but as noted above by some of the contributors, it’s not a magic bullet. I think it can be used to engage consumers effectively and if costs are an issue it can help there. But I think it will be very difficult to crowdsource brilliance. And of course the flip side of that is that brilliance may be run over by the ‘wisdom’ of crowds as genius is rarely seen as such by the majority when they are first exposed to it.

The smartest people and ideas I discovered or was introduced to via Twitter in October:

Smart People / Smart Ideas October 2009

Kicking off Oct. Smart People / Smart Ideas #245 with @briansolis Great stats on SocMed: People Defining Social Networks http://bit.ly/fo11P

Smart People / Smart Ideas #246 2 smarties for the price of 1: @GeoffLiving talks to #BlogPotomac Speaker @jquig99 http://bit.ly/25GvQk

Smart People / Smart Ideas #247 @themshow creates the PR agency of future http://bit.ly/3cm14h [hat tip @DougH] Must read 4 PR agency CEOs

Smart People / Smart Ideas #248 @BBHLabs talking AI and Augmentation http://bit.ly/8GiAD & http://bit.ly/4dmZ36 Great reads. 

Smart People / Smart Ideas #249 @briansolis’s PR 2.0 blog has a guest post by @mediaphyter  re: SocMed consultants: http://bit.ly/3Tbd9G

Smart People / Smart Ideas #250 @BostonPRPro says it’s still about building relationships http://j.mp/u4wEp [h/t @TDefren] 

Smart People / Smart Ideas #251 @DougH guest-posting for @TDefren on the new Google Sidewiki – http://j.mp/xxuyL

Smart People / Smart Ideas #252 @mikearauz says you get what you measure. Time to adopt a Valuable Measurement approach http://bit.ly/8rWKN

Smart People / Smart Ideas #253 @briansolis introduces the Social Compass: http://bit.ly/QqC6Y

Smart People / Smart Ideas #254 @awolk on opportunities to get edgy in his new AdAge column: http://bit.ly/1mGTB8

Smart People / Smart Ideas #255 @its_amber talks brand integration via Willy Wonka http://bit.ly/436v93 [hat tip @NakedNY]

Smart People / Smart Ideas #256 @malbonster on organizational response http://bit.ly/2r5X12 [Massive post, h/t @Malbonnington]

Smart People / Smart Ideas #257 @media_reveries teaches the Ad Industry what they can learn from Bollywood:  http://bit.ly/4kPnBS

Smart People/Smart Ideas #258 @AmberCadabra reminds us that Humans don’t scale http://tinyurl.com/yje9utz Worth a click 4 the image alone. 

Smart People / Smart Ideas #259 @BBHLabs on Adaptive Brand Marketing: http://bit.ly/2GhgzQ [Seriously, you haven't hired these guys yet?]

Smart People / Smart ideas #260 @jinal_shah is rocking it with her new Content Decoded site. Here she riffs on @faris  http://bit.ly/1OA9co

Smart People / Smart Ideas #261 @MackCollier on Rock Stars and Rock Star ideas: http://is.gd/4CxMJ

Smart People / Smart Ideas #262 @AmberCadabra on Social Media Time Management: Getting Organized http://bit.ly/4×1jo5

Smart People / Smart Ideas #263 @TDefren  explains why some ad agencies are having a hard time with SocMed: http://bit.ly/17S93

Smart People / Smart Ideas #264 Joe Duffy (via @fastcompany) gives a plea: Stop Going to Work http://bit.ly/1Vcdhe [h/t @eeki] 

Smart People / Smart Ideas #265 @anjali28 on Brand Fiction via Mad Men http://ow.ly/x3hB [hat tip @madebymany] 

Smart People / Smart Ideas #266 @michaelSurtees: Story vs. Systems, or as things will be for the time being http://bit.ly/4wZOal

Smart People / Smart Ideas #267 @inakiescudero gives well deserved props to @BBHLabs & @madebymany  http://bit.ly/UP71n

Smart People / Smart ideas #268 @ShannonPaul on The Trouble with Blog Influence Statistics http://tr.im/DABg [hat tip @MarketerBlog

Follow me on Twitter to get the Smart People / Smart Ideas links as they happen.

I haven’t always loved Weezer’s music (though the blue album is brilliant), but I love the band. They’ve always had a knack for understanding their audience and providing content (music, videos, blankets – more on that later) that shows they perfectly understand their fans. Here’s a quick review:

First, the Buddy Holly video:

Directed by the brilliant Spike Jonze.

Then they tweeked the Internet meme with their video for “Pork and Beans”

But now they’ve taken it to a different level with the Weezer Snuggie:

Clever, but when you add in a copy of their latest CD it shifts from clever to shrewd. If you think the Snuggie is dumb, and a Weezer Snuggie is really dumb, then you probably aren’t going to like their music anyway. But if you’re a Weezer fan, you love this type of stuff.

Can you imagine what Weezer concerts must look like now? Thousands of people in Weezer Snuggies. Of course the true diehard fan will be sporting the exclusive Weezer Safari Snuggie. Jimmy Buffett gets a lot of credit, and rightly so, for creating a strong community around his music, Weezer are doing it as well and are guaranteeing themselves a hardcore, devoted fanbase for years to come.

While you’re at it, look at the fantastic Weezer YouTube channel, complete with behind the scenes videos and other good stuff.

Twitter Lists

How many lists are you on?

 

Whose lists are you on?

Who else is on the list with you?

Aside from debating the overall functionality, those seem to be the questions regarding the new Twitter Lists function.

In other words it took just a couple of days for Twitter Lists to become just another way of measuring ourselves and each other. It’s still early and people are just starting to use this feature, but it’s disappointing to see so many rush to the bottom. Mark Drapeau voices a similar concern here.

Maybe it’s because I use Tweetdeck, but I’m having a hard time seeing the appeal of Twitter Lists. Yes, I do appreciate that my lists will come with me from computer to computer, but I can still only see one List stream at a time. Am I really going to toggle between my main stream and two or three lists, back and forth, back and forth? Rachel Sklar is also somewhat less than impressed with the whole operation.

Perhaps Twitter Lists aren’t intended for power users who are already using third-party interfaces, but rather for the more casual users. I’d be interested to see h0w sophisticated users with four or five lists are getting along with this new functionality.

This is an excerpt of a post I contributed to Jinal Shah’s excellent new site, Content Decoded. You can read the entire piece here.

I think one of the bigger trends of the last few years has been increasing ability for consumers to customize the content they receive. At first blush, this seems like a good thing. Being able to pull only the relevant content you want sounds great when there is an overwhelming amount of content out there.  This sort of filtering can work on both qualitative and quantitative levels. But what is often overlooked is what is lost with this sort of filtering, the serendipitous discovery of content.

When I flip through a magazine or newspaper invariably my eye will come across an article that piques my interest. Not something that I’m necessarily a huge fan of, but something close enough that my curiosity has now gotten the best of me. Let me give you an example. I remember seeing a review or interview or some sort of mention of the novel Netherland when it was first published. While critically acclaimed, this wasn’t the type of book that was going to generate Dan Brown-type hype. If I don’t flip by this story in the paper, I’m probably never going to know of its existence. I’ll come back to Netherland in a moment.

This idea of serendipity is important, especially to people working in creative industries. We need a wide base of knowledge and experiences, yet by subscribing to certain feeds, email alerts and newsletters we tend to shrink our knowledge base. But what if, rather than narrow our sources, technology could be used to widen them?

Pandora is a fantastic application for music lovers that helps them discover new music. Not completely alien music, but rather music that is somehow similar to music users already like. So, if say you are a fan of Belle & Sebastian, Pandora will recommend Kruder & Dorfmeister or perhaps Stereo MC’s. That’s cool, I like both of those groups too. But it will also give me Sofa Surfers, a group I’ve never heard of. But I feel comfortable checking them out because there’s a pretty good chance they’ll be in the same ballpark.

Go to Content Decoded for the rest of the idea.

As we approach the end of October and I look back on 2009 I think there is one lesson that stands out from the rest for me: The “Free Economy” has its drawbacks.

I’m not speaking specifically about the web here, though you certainly see many examples of the Free Economy on the Internet. This is a more general statement about how we interact with each other, the value we give things and the commitment we make to others (and the commitment we accept from them).

 From my experience, here are five examples of ways the Free Economy generates a less than stellar exchange:

1. It’s too easy to join

Quick, how many Social Networks, newletters, websites and ‘exclusive societies’ do you belong to right now? I’m guessing you’d need at least both hands to count them. You probably didn’t even think twice about joining them or ask yourself what real benefit you’d gain once you did. Now most of these emails just clog your inbox, you probably don’t even open many of them anymore, you just delete them. And when was the last time you made a real contribution to that group you were so excited to join on LinkedIn nine months ago?

2. It’s too easy to quit

Which of course leads us to the flip side – it’s too easy to quit. Maybe you realized that the group you joined would require some effort on your part. Or you get tired of automatically deleted all those emails. So finally, one day, you decide to take the time to unsubscribe to all these things. As you do so you think to yourself, “I know there was a reason I signed up for these in the first place.” But without any financial connection, it was just too easy to let things slide. 

3. Free creates weak communities

When it’s free to join and free to participate communities become weak. This happens in a couple of different ways. As noted above, it’s too easy to join and you end up with people who aren’t really committed to the cause. They are joining on a whim. Soon you’ve got a lot of dead wood, look at all the people who join Twitter, and then never tweet. The next phase then is quitting which is easy as well, and soon you have a community filled with people flitting in and out, not contributing to the cause, yet still taking up administrative resources.

The other drawback is that it creates an environment for trolls. Take a look at popular YouTube posts, or trending topics on Twitter. They are filled with spammers and trolls mucking up the system. If these people had to pay $5 every time for the privelage of writing, “Get rich using Twitter, ask me how [insert link]” we’d see a lot less of that type of stuff. In this case it may not even be a matter of money. A simple username and password system can be enough of a ‘cost.’

4. Free devalues the product

On a couple of occasions this year I’ve asked friends for a “favor” that included they provide me with a good or service that is part of their livelihood. Maybe I offered some sort of weak barter in exchange, but in retrospect, shame on me. If I valued their talent, I should have offered to pay them the going rate for their services, and if they demured I should have insisted. Once you ask for a “favor” you relinquished all your rights as a consumer. If it isn’t quite what you were looking for that’s too bad, you can’t ask for revisions, they are doing you a favor. Are they not meeting your deadlines? That’s too bad, they are doing you a favor after all.

It works in the other direction as well. If you are asked for the favor, sure

Ok, yes, some things should be free

you want to be a nice guy and say yes, even if it’s not quite up your alley. Then, a couple of days later you realize this isn’t a project you really want to work on, or you have other paying gigs that take precedent.  Pretty soon you start dreading this “favor’ you agreed to. Now everyone is a loser as you aren’t going to do your best work, and your friend isn’t going to get what he wants either.

5. Free creates work of lesser quality

It’s very easy to fall into the thinking of, “Hey, nobody’s paying for this, it doesn’t have to be perfect.” When you create something, whether a community, a good or service, when people aren’t paying for it, you as the creator have an out. It’s going to be hard for people to yell at you regarding the quality because you can always fall back on the ‘you get what you pay for’ retort. Expectations – of yourself, and from the consumer – are lowered in a free transaction. It can work if it is something you are wildly passionate about, but otherwise the quality will suffer.

I’m not some sort of arch capitalist who thinks every last dime needs to be squeezed out of every opportunity, but putting up even some small economic barriers can address many of these issues. I hope that in 2010 I’ll be more thoughtful when it comes to the type of things I decide to participate in and how I ask others to participate in my efforts.

A few weeks ago when I first saw the Wieden + Kennedy produced “Go Forth” ads for Levi’s I was immediately taken by their arresting power. A really terrific execution that combines bold visuals with a voice-over that was unlike anything I’d heard before, both in sound and content.

A (much) smarter man than I, Grant McCracken, wrote about the campaign and provided me with a bit of an education – the voice over is American poet Walt Whitman reading…Walt Whitman. Make sure you read Grant’s piece, he expertly describes how Whitman and Levi’s are a perfect match. Check out the W+K breakdown on the campaign here. Here’s “O Pioneers”:

Again, hats off to W+K. They clearly dug deep to find the truly meaning of Levi’s. You can feel notes of director John Ford, There Will Be Blood, and even on some level a David Lynch or Quentin Tarantino in the spots American-ness. I’d love to see the idea board at the W+K offices with all the influences and inspirations that this campaign came from.

I think Levi’s is a classic example of a company that needed one of Grant’s Chief Culture Officers. Once a truly iconic American brand, on the same level as Coca-Cola, Levi’s lost their way as the denim market changed (based on changes in consumer behaviour, consumption and culture). The brand suddenly looked dated and old comapared to hipper brands, and they were more expensive than what you’d get from in-house brands at Old Navy.

They tried hard to chase the scene, using talented directors like Spike Jonze:

or Michel Gondry:

But this doesn’t jive with the true spirit of what makes Levi’s, well, Levi’s. Here’s where a Chief Culture Officer is different than a mere trend watcher. Yes, a CCO would have seen what competitors, both high and low, were doing and would have been aware of the cutting edge film being produced by the likes of Gondry and Jonze. But a CCO would have also understood the DNA of Levi’s and known what Levi’s can, and crucially, cannot be.

Now, the critical question for me is will Levi’s and W+K be able to keep this campaign going? Currently there is a contest on the Levi’s website that is extending the campaign. I’d really like to see this idea be extended, but at the same time they can’t over do it. Part of what makes this campaign so powerful for me is that it feels special. That feeling will disappear a little bit each time I see the ads. I hope they continue to bring this concept to life in new and exciting ways.

UPDATE: Michael Hastings-Black (see comments below) points me to an article written by Christine Huang on HuffPost regarding the campaign. Christine is super smart and I respect her opinions in this area. Can’t really argue with her points regarding where Levi’s missed the mark on this campaign. It still works for me though because, despite the issues raised, it repositions the brand for me. It puts Levi’s back in my consideration set.

Now, I can see this campaign isn’t going to work for everyone, I’ve seen comments on Christine’s article as well as the W+K blog that show some people are not buying what they are selling. I think Levi’s and W+K have to be ok with that. You can’t please everyone. Perhaps future iterations will expand the campaign to take into account some of the criticisms, but to do so at the expense of the powerful visual and emotional context they’ve created would be a disappointment for me.

The first, and longest, phase of marketing strategy was to push your message to the market. Billboards, radio spots, TV adverts, direct mail, you name. Blast your message to consumers early and often.

The idea of pulling customers to you certainly pre-dates the Internet (think coupons), but most of us today think of websites and opt-in email marketing as the way many companies have tried to pull target consumers to them. In the early Web 1.0 days this worked pretty well. A lot of money was spent making nifty websites with all sorts of bells and whistles.

But with Web 2.0, the dynamic has shifted. Now consumers can make their own websites, often just as good (or at least just as compelling) as the big brands. Social Media also changed the game, giving people a place to go and interact. Now, leading brands are neither pushing nor pulling (or at least not just pushing and/or pulling), but rather are chasing. “Where are the consumers, and can we find them before our competition does?” is the question brands are now asking themselves.

While the Chase phase is sure to be around for a while – as long as sites like Facebook and Twitter continue to gather users – some people are already looking ahead to the next phase: Collaboration.

The Dachic Group have embarked upon a project they call their Collaboratory: Part collaboration space, part laboratory on Social Business Design, it’s where we invite our ecosystem to engage us. It’s the starting point from which we help businesses capture value through Social Business Design. 

This is an interesting and ambitious idea and one I think many companies will have trouble embracing and executing. Allowing vendors, agents, clients, consumers, partners and yes, critics, into your ecosystem makes you vulnerable and requires a willingness to relinquish power in ways that companies just aren’t traditionally set up to do. But the potential benefits would seem to make a powerful argument in favor of trying this radical new approach.

I imagine that if a company could successfully integrate this type of collaboration, they would move towards a model where decisions are not only made faster, but that group buy in on those decisions would be much greater, with more constituents feeling they had skin in the game. When several parties have a vested interest in the successful execution and completion of a project, real momentum is generated.

How can brands and consumers work together to create new and innovative marketing solutions? Will we see more creative agencies like Dachis Group, Anomaly and BBH Labs look to partner with clients for mutually beneficial revenue opportunities, rather than simply serve as vendors? I think the smart, agile companies will lead this collaborative charge and have a real jump on those who will be dragged into it.

It’s Friday, time to get this party started. Couple of great music related videos I saw today. This has absolutely nothing to do with nothing. Enjoy:

Mike Relm v. Zoetrope:

This next one is ridiculous. Yeah, it’s long, but it’s just killer.

Have a great weekend.

I totally swiped this image from Swiss Miss

Via Swiss Miss, I got an inside peek at Wieden + Kennedy’s Portland office this week thanks to this Fail Harder video:

I’m sure some cynics will question the use of time/resouces in producing this piece and I think they are missing the point. W + K has extremely creative people and sometimes they need an outlet for that beyond writing copy for another 30 second ad for dog food.  But as creative as they are, and as good as the execution may be, sometimes they swing and miss. In fact, I think any good creative agency, regardless of industry is going to have a good number of failures. So the natural thing to do is pull back a little, mitigate your losses. “At least it wasn’t a massive failure.”

And you keep doing that for a couple of years. Each time your work gets a little safer, the edges are a little more round and pretty soon top talent is leaving and you can’t replace it with new top talent, because they view your work as safe.

What are the benefits of failing hard? You begin to understand true boundaries. How much are consumers willing to experience, how much will a client accept? It’s important to test these boundaries and to continue to push them a little further out. It certainly helps to have a client who trusts you and is willing to go on the journey with you.

There’s nothing worse that losing a pitch or getting a concept rejected when you know it wasn’t the best stuff you had, when you know you held a little something back. If you’re going to go down, go down swinging for the fences.  There are hundreds of agencies out there that can create mediocre failures. Those are the same shops that create mediocre successes.

Hat tip to Swiss Miss for image and trail to video.