The beginning of the end. Unilever goes the crowdsourcing route to spruce up TV ads and recruit creative ideas.
After 16 years of using the same ad agency, they’re throwing up a $10,000 prize offering for the best creative marketing ideas.
Turning to the masses for ideas is increasingly hip and less expensive. That said, a mastermind at the helm to gather and choose the right ideas or more likely, mix of ideas is also increasingly important.
This is where marketing has to sit and the hat it needs to wear. Forget those MBA hats. When I look at candidates, I think: are you creative and strategic, can you act intelligently and balanced on the fly, be more flexible than anyone else I talk to, and multitask in a flurry of incoming and outgoing noise?
Crowdsourcing is a great way to solicit valuable feedback and creative ideas. Crowdspring and User Voice are two of numerous services worth checking out.
That said, the crowd doesn’t know the direction you want to take your company, the voice and personality you’d like it to have or your financial goals.
That’s where the role of the new mastermind comes in. It’s time (and has been for awhile btw), that marketing, PR and advertising execs dust off their notebooks, forget about how they were trained, adapt to the two way exchange and participate rather than dictate.
There’s most definitely still a role, an important one that a lot of CEOs, engineers and product guys don’t have the personality to play. Don’t dabble. Dive into it with force.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
