Article Name: Why Crowdsourcing makes sense for Indian Brands

By

Subramanian N H
Student (PGDM/Regular II Year),
Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR),
Chennai 600 034
E-mail: subramanian.nh@ifmr.ac.in

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal.

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 Why Crowdsourcing makes sense for
Indian Brands
Crowdsourcing basically refers to the idea
of volunteers or amateurs distributed
across time and space, working in their
spare time, to perform tasks or produce
solutions for an organization in a faster,
more efficient and cost-effective manner. It
is not altogether a new concept, but it has
surprisingly not been fully leveraged by
Indian brands. In fact, the most vivid
example of its use that comes to my mind
is that of the open call by the Indian
Government to the public for designs for
the new Rupee symbol. While
crowdsourcing models (refer Figure 1)
exist for collaborative problem-solving and
task outsourcing, the focus of this article is
on brand-building by leveraging
massive potential.
While it is true that a few Indian
brands (like Tata DoCoMo which
crowdsourced its design logo & signature
tune, Lays India which invited customers
to create new flavours) have realized its
value, many other Indian brands are yet to
hit on the concept. While Indian brands are
still conducting age-old contests for brand
slogans, Frito-Lays crowdsourced creation
of its very ad for its Doritos brand of
chips and the consumer-created ad was
aired during the much-watched Super-
Bowl and is rated among its most popular
ads. Or consider Threadless, a US
company which makes millions of dollars
in revenue selling T-shirts with designs
sourced from the crowd. Clearly, the
potential is huge.
In this article, I wish to argue (with
reasons) why crowdsourcing has never
been more relevant to Indian brands than
now what with the explosion of social
networking in India and the consequent
ease of participation, collaboration and
more importantly, supervision that it can
facilitate. It is true that without
supervision, open-call initiatives for brand-
building may fail to sustain or even
generate crowd interest what with the little
monetary incentive. But this supervision
part is nowadays guaranteed by robust
its
crowdsourcing models which help to
gather and filter only those fit to contribute
with the most relevant and fresh ideas for
brand-building. Such supervision is
possible due to the growth of Web 2.0
technologies enabling easier sharing and
collaboration. Now, let me elucidate some
of the reasons as to why I feel
crowdsourcing can be a boon for Indian
brands:
First, customers can emotionally invest
in a brand or product by being a part of
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 the creative process of marketing
making them unique brand
ambassadors. There cannot be a better
way to gauge and reward brand loyalty,
especially for well-entrenched brands.
Crowdsourcing helps to identify the
sense of disconnect and subsequent
irritation that customers get when they
see that the portrayal of a brand
(through mainly the traditional product
promotion channels like television and
print media in India) doesnt reflect the
sense of value that he sees in the brand.
Such disconnect ultimately leads to
product switching and loss of
customers.
The lack of creativity and repetitive,
boring ads and other ways of product
promotion produced by the old creative
agencies for FMCG and other brands
where product innovation is
traditionally low. In an age where
competition is high, customer memory
is short and customer tastes are ever-
changing, brands need to constantly
come up with new and refreshing ideas
which can re-energise the brand. There
is an increasing Innovation Impatience
where customers demand not only
newer products but newer and fresher
ways of showcasing older products as
well.
When it comes to crowdsourcing ads,
Airtimes for visual media are getting
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more and more expensive and it makes
a lot of economic sense for any
company to try to reduce at least the
development costs of promotions. Thus,
through crowdsourcing, it can tap a
wider range of cheaper talent than
might be present in the hired ad agency
or in-house creative arm.
Crowdsourcing can be a great way to
gather fresh ideas and perspectives for a
new product design or improvements to
existing products etc. Dell, for example,
through its IdeaStorm portal (refer
Figure 2) collected, rewarded and
implemented various improvement
ideas for its various Dell products and
services. And LG, in 2009, designed
one of its new phones through a crowd-
generated idea.
With the rise of Internet and Web 2.0,
crowdsourcing initiatives can be
quickly set up and technologies to
enable collaborative development,
design, testing and feedback are easily
available. This enables faster
development and allows vetting of
ideas by the crowd itself before the
companys decision. Also, with youth
forming the majority of Internet users in
India, Indian crowds, have the
potential to be highly active and
enthusiastic participants.
Many companies are realizing that their
brands, through their ads, convey an
 outdated sense of value to target for utilizing it to build brands. And as
customers but struggle to find an more and more Indians are joining the
alternative to traditional forms and Information and Communication
means of marketing. Crowdsourcing Revolution, it presents a unique
can fill this need to help portray the opportunity for Indian brands to not just
brand in a new and totally modern light. engage with them but to source from
Crowdsourcing helps the brands keep in them as well.
touch with the underlying brand reality
i.e. the brand as perceived by the References:

customer and which constantly changes. 1) Dells IdeaStorm -

Companies can understand customer
behaviour directly, learn new wants &
needs and gain unexpected insights.
And lastly, Crowdsourcing more than
anything else can be a great PR
initiative increasing brand visibility and
perception. While the quality of the end
http://www.ideastorm.com/
2) Crowdsourcing: 5 Reasons It's Not Just
For Startups Any More -
http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/enterprise/2
009/09/crowdsourcing_5_reasons_its_n
o.php
3) Doritos Crash the Super Bowl -

results or ideas is still debatable, such http://www.themarketingarm.com/index

concerns are more relevant in the .php?id=77

4) Will crowdsourcing be a threat to
context of using crowdsourcing for
agencies?
problem-solving or product
-http://www.campaignindia.in/Article/2
design/testing rather than for brand
30102,will-crowdsourcing-be-a-threat-
marketing.
to-agencies.aspx
5) Threadless -
Thus, Crowdsourcing which is
http://www.threadless.com/
increasingly gaining acceptance
6) The Magic of Many -
worldwide and is setting the way large
http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/26/stori
and complex problems can be solved by
es/2009072655631000.htm
collaboration makes a compelling case

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Figures:

Figure 1: A Generic Crowdsourcing Model (Source: ebizq.net)

Figure 2: Dell's IdeaStorm (Left) and FritoLays' Doritos Ad Campaign (Right)