Crowdsourcing in marketing is not new. The most prominent example—the immensely popular fan-created commercials for Doritos as part of its Crash the Super Bowl campaign. Probably taking a leaf out of Doritos’ book, Chevrolet has also announced plans to follow a similar strategy.

However, such stories should not mislead marketers to believe that crowdsourcing is a quick way to achieve amazing results.  In contrast, reaching out to a large average crowd can actually overwhelm marketers with the sheer number of ideas they receive, and the time and effort in sifting through those ideas can be much larger than engaging an agency to do the job. Moreover, the ideas can also turn out to be completely off-track and unusable.

That said, the good news is—some new agency models have evolved over the last 3-4 years that help to conduct, what can be called, “targeted crowdsourcing” or “expertsourcing.” Here, instead of broadcasting a project brief to masses, only select few specialists are chosen to do the assignment.

Here are some examples of such models: Read More »

As the recession has (hopefully!) begun to wane a bit, and marcomm budgets are growing again, we’re finding that many members are either re-establishing relationships with agencies they had to cut in the downturn, or finding new agencies to pick up the slack. We figured it was worth taking a trip through our findings on agency relationships to re-introduce folks to the best practices of our network in terms of finding great partner agencies, structuring their work within the broader organization, and evaluating/compensating them according to their results.

Here are five ideas for getting the most out of your agency partnerships – you can find more here: Read More »

No matter how big or small your company may be, chances are that some of its operations are performed out of house.  Whether it is more beneficial in terms of cost, or simply because you prefer an agency’s work, partnerships with area-specific companies (i.e. web development, creative design) can be a huge asset.  So then what would happen if these out of house agency partners were brought in-house?  One executive poses this question in our recently launched Marketing Org & Ops Forum, asking “Does your company have any agency services in-house, and if so, which ones?” Read More »

With the World Cup winding down, which brand sponsors will have done the best? And what will have been the key to their success? 

There’s no shortage of sensational reporting on the sponsors.  For example, there’s an interesting report here on the buzz between Nike and Adidas (the official sponsor). Observation: the PR success for Adidas from the Jabulani ball has, like the flight of the ball, been erratic and unpredictable, but probably a net positive for Adidas. 

Meanwhile, other sponsors fled like rats off a sinking ship to get away from the implosion of the French national team.  Sacre (les) Bleus!

Non-sponsor brands also saw their share of action. In a provocative tale of ambush marketing, 36 female Dutch fans were detained for wearing orange miniskirts, evidently a clear symbol of Bavaria beer (NOT an official sponsor, by the way).

But beyond all the buzz and antics, what characterizes great, enduring world cup sponsorship marketing? Read More »

By Erin Lynch-Klarup

In talking with marketers about Social Media, we hear about good and not-so-good experiences with vendors in the space.  In many cases, calling on outside expertise makes sense – but matching Marketing’s needs with a vendor’s capabilities can be tricky in this rapidly growing market.  Here are a few things to consider (for those primarily interested in the iPad … skip to #3!) Read More »

By Erin Lynch-Klarup

Looking for help developing your social media strategy?  Want a new Facebook application but don’t know where to start? The growth of social media has given rise to a flood of new vendors proffering solutions to almost every aspect of social media marketing.

To help harness collective knowledge of vendor performance, the Marketing Leadership Council launched a Social Media Vendor Review Tool, where marketers can review vendors they’ve worked with and access other reviews from peers.

We’ve collected 36 reviews to date, and we’ve noticed a few general trends across these reviews: Read More »

Mountain: Post-Mountaintop Removal

2009 was a year of taking sledgehammers to budgets, not least agency spend.  Many marketers have relied on the equivalent of mountaintop removal to get at those agency savings.  They’ve launched agency reviews or have consolidated agency relationships.  These approaches are imprecise, crude and unsightly—but can be effective in reducing spend. 

However, most of these marketers will be under continued budget pressure in 2010.  The problem with mountaintop blasting is that, once you do it, you can’t play that card again (uh, the top of the mountain is gone).  So what are marketers to do to find additional cost savings that won’t harm communications quality?  Read More »

There’s a bubbling, burgeoning cottage industry of social media vendors out there.  Some are traditional agencies claiming social media expertise.  Others are small shop upstarts with very clever automated solutions and workflow tools.

Having now conducted dozens of consults with members who have completed their social media maturity diagnostic, we noticed a real appetite amongst members for help navigating this kaleidoscopic (is that even a word?) vendor landscape.  Read More »

In my last post, I wrote about the ever higher authenticity expectations that consumers have of their brand interactions.  To meet those expectations, marketers spend millions with agency partners and agonize over how to structure their agency rosters. 

Click Image to Enlarge

In fact, we found that two-thirds of clients are establishing lead or full-service agency partnership models in hopes of achieving integrated communications.  But if you ask clients their likelihood of recommending their current agency partners on their ability to deliver the most target-resonant creative or touchpoint ideas, you get embarrassing NPS scores (see the graphic at left). 

What gives?

Here’s the problem: the cast of characters on the typical agency roster is too far removed from today’s target audiences to routinely and convincingly clear a higher authenticity bar.  Read More »

There’s nothing like a recession to make your agencies work really hard for you.  But as we start to see the dimmest of lights at the end of the tunnel, you’d be smart to think about getting the best work from agencies that are poking around for new business from clients starting to spend again. 

I see a blind spot for client-side folks–we think about the agency as an institution, not a collection of smart, creative workers.  You can bet that, just like the agency business itself, the staffers on your account are poking around for new job leads, too (at least the best ones probably are); it’s natural, but it costs you money and time when the best staffers leave.

Don’t leave this to the agencies to manage without your input.  With all the pressure we’re putting on their margins, there’s no guarantee they’ll do what’s best for their staffer’s compensation. Read More »