Expensive ad agency solutions regularly push video and rich media ad campaigns into six figures. AdReady, Mixpo and others have used templates, stock footage, networks and other solutions to bring the cost down.
How about crowd sourcing the creative? Genius Rocket, a three year old startup launched by former VerticalNet and AOL Executive Mark Walsh, “crowd sources” RFPs on an NDA basis to pre-qualified creative teams, many of whom are moonlighting from their day jobs with major agencies.
The Bethesda, MD-based company currently sends RFPs out to more than 400 teams and regularly gets 50 or more entries. Bake off winners get the right to develop campaigns with Genius Rocket, cutting costs down by as much as 75 percent to the $10k to $30k level sought by large local SMBs, such as car dealers, hospitals and others. The concept is similar to crowdsourcing solutions for logos originally developed by LogoWorks and initially pursued by Genius Rocket, along with contests and other creative.
Walsh and company president Peter LaMotte, in a discussion with BIA/Kelsey, says they’ve found video to be a lot more complex than graphic design – but that also creates an effective barrier to entry. “There may be one witty idea that is not produced well, says Lamotte. “Or just the opposite: a campaign that is produced well but is off message.”
The use of crowd-sourcing gives Genius Rocket a multitude of choice and ideas. Its 10 person team can help facilitate and improve production, but more importantly, it links the end result from The Top Three contenders with a community of online critics that has grown to 1.4 million. The critics, including retirees and others, are incented to participate with contests and coupons. Walsh says that millions of dollars of prize awardshave been granted.
At a higher level, Genius Rocket also works with former AdAge ad critic Bob Garfield, who provides a qualitative evaluation of every strategic, live-action campaign. He’s very influential. One imagines a lot of companies would go with Genius Rocket just to get a critique from him.
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This is very nice and is included in the Crowd-Sourcing section of cf the Open Source Everything Highlights at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. Short url to the stack is http://tinyurl.com/OSE-ALL twitter hash #openall
Now imagine crowd-sourcing \true cost\ information on every product, service, and behavior. Imagine crowd-sourcing \move your money\ and (Jim Turner’s term \buycott\ where financial services firms and company that exported US jobs are put out of business.
What we are talking about here is the beginning of public intelligence in the public interest, at the point of sale. Forget advertising–in the future it will be transparency, truth, & trust that will sell products and service.
I for one love this concept. With the push for Quality Content it becomes harder for SMB’s to compete with the big boys that have large budgets for videos. I would be interested to see the quality of work that Genius Rocket puts out.
Chris
I love the platform that Logo Works and Genius Rocket run on. I believe platforms that perform on Crowd Sourcing provide a new source of products at a different price. If you look at LogoWorks, the platform is creating affordable logos for business owners and consistant work for freelancers. It would be interesting to Rocket Genius pricing model for their work.
Crowd Sourcing is one of the best platforms for freelancers. I would like to know the pricing model the Rocket Genius has for their solutions.
After reading this article on Rocket Genius, I tried researching further on how Rocket Genius’ business model has excelled since this article posted in August. I have not found any future updates of their success. Does anyone have any websites with their current status?
Crowdsourcing is by far the way of the future. You only have to look at the recent success of all of the crowdsourcing websites to know that they are on a winner. See Red Beacon, 99Designs, Freelancer, Thumbtack, and even our own site Service Central. All are smashing it!
Crowdsourcing is the way of the future. I am wondering how Genius Rocket is currently doing since this article was first published. Are there any follow up articles to this one?
This incredibly powerful business process is great. I am very interested in seeing what greatness comes out of Genius Rocket.
Excellent article, will probably be beneficial to see how this develops. Will bookmark your webpage to stay up to date. Kind regards.