Two events recently have put crowdsourcing back in the fray.  Firstly the Moving Brand ‘public pitch’ for an identity for London. Moving Brands created a blog of the story of their pitch, and posted the pitch itself online, here. Part of the pitch was to ask Londoners (and presumably anyone else who wanted to contribute) to submit their ideas. They had over 40,000 visitors to the blog and over 500 twitter followers. They didn’t get on the pitch short list (but then nor did we) but in some regards they have won already. As a publicity stunt it was nothing short of brilliant.

The second notable embracing of crowdsourcing was at Unilever’s instigation. Unilever have decided that they no longer need Lowe, their agency of 15 years on Peparami, to deliver any more advertising. Instead they will put the creative assignment out to tender as a competition. They have created a website, www.IdeaBounty.com, where anyone can submit ideas for campaign.

Is there cause for concern us in the commercial arts as our years of sweat and toil are swept aside by a one in a ten thousand art school amateur with a mac in their attic?

I don’t really think so. For a start we ought to embrace, and celebrate, this explosion of creativity. The more we can use it in a meaningful way (gratuitous use of crowdsourcing is as bad as gratuitous use of ‘technique’ for its own sake) the better engaged and rewarded our audiences will be. I was always thought that communication was about stimulus and response. That we can engage our audience enough for them to spend the time and effort creating a logo or make an ad is a wonderful thing.

Then there is the very compelling argument that who is likely to come up with the really good ideas time and time again? Richard Huntingdon argues, in a terrific post, entitled  “Great Ideas can come from anywhere, my arse” on his adliterate blog, that in all likelihood, the best ideas will come from the professionals who work at their craft day after day after day. If we feel too threatened by the allcomers approach perhaps the problem lies within.

In situations where there is an agency setting a framework for crowdsourcing for them to review, or using it as an input to build better ideas (without stealing, we don’t like that) or when a creative director who is on hand to help with the selection and idea development, like in the Moving Brands pitch, it seems to me that crowdsourcing is no bad thing at all. I am all for it.

The Unilever example, however, is more worrying. Firstly, because of the absence of a creative director to help guide the best ideas through, and secondly, because of the apparent absence of account management in proceedings. Perhaps the real threat isn’t to the creative side of the house so much as the complete by passing of client servicing by the use of today’s technology.