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Why Should We Crowdsource? (Will You Whistle for Me?)

Thank you very much for having me today. It’s a huge honor to speak in front this audience. Thank you also, John, for the kind introduction.

Today I want to spend some time defining what I consider crowdsourcing to mean, and how I am using it in the context of growing our audiences. Then, I’d like to discuss how we can use it by looking at recent successes, and how we can apply those learnings to inform future frameworks. But before I do that, I want to play a game.

I’d like to ask the audience to whistle if they feel compelled to.

Ready?

OK. Whistle.

(RB note: Approximately 25% of the audience offered a weak, disjointed whistle) Thanks, we’ll come back to that, at which point I promise it will make more sense.

This morning, I’m going to spend some time talking with you about the buzzword, crowdsourcing. I was specifically invited here today to speak about the role of crowdsourcing in marketing.

My only instructions were to not promote my company Tugg with too heavy a hand. Sidenote: Tugg is an ingenious distribution platform that gives audiences the power of choice in moviegoing by bringing an on-demand experience to local theaters. And in no way am I promoting that you go to Tugg.com (that’s with two g’s) or go to our Facebook page.

See? I kept my promise.

So what is crowdsourcing? And why is it worth 15 minutes of your morning?

Quite simply: Crowdsourcing is going to be a feature of your marketing efforts that is going to be as commonplace as an ad in a magazine. And it’s going to cost a hell of a lot less. Why should you care about it? Because it can help you get more butts in seats and eyes on screens than you can without it.

I want to start by raising a question that I think everyone here has faced, possibly even this morning. It’s one of the first questions we ask ourselves when we encounter a new project

It goes something like: “Why will people see this film?”

Is it because famous people are in it?

Because there are blue aliens?

Because you get to be trapped in space with George Clooney?

Maybe.

In the past, we used marketing vehicles to manufacture an impetus to get and grow audiences. We’ve tried to amplify our messages as loud and as long as possible, hoping through sheer force we could convince people our content was worthy of their time and money. The thinking has long been that how much we spend directly relates to how much we earn.

At best, these mediums convince the consumer exposed to them to see or buy our films, and perhaps bring some of their friends along the way. But we’ve rarely made it their s.

According to generally accepted market research, one word of mouth recommendation has the impact on an individual of over 200 television ads. To be clear, that sort of recommendation usually sounds something like: “There’s something I really think you should see.” And the statistic—1:200— tells us that traditional vehicles on their own aren’t giving us the sort of horsepower in today’s environment that we need to build our brands and attract more fans. Even more, I’d venture that every person in this room is already saying, or soon will be saying: “I want in on that one word of mouth.” That’s because today, it’s not enough to assume audiences will go to our films because of their fabric, because of their quality, or because of their content. Consumers— our audiences—want a stake in what they buy, especially if they’re going to recommend it.

So what is crowdsourcing?

The term “crowdsourcing” was coined by Jeff Howe in a Wired magazine article, and if you want to find him, he stole the Twitter handle @crowdsourcing.

Jeff smartly defined crowdsourcing as “the act of taking a job traditionally performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined, large group of people in the form of an open call.”¹

In our worlds, that looks a lot like getting people to promote our films for us, with us.

Almost immediately, the term, and concept, was applied to just about everything you can think of: Investigative journalism, fan-owned sports teams, graphic design, government and, yes, film.

I would define crowdsourcing as the process of earnestly engaging with the public through a specific call to action with shared goals and shared rewards.

But let’s take a step back and look at where we stand today, on November 11th, 2013.

We live at a time when the ability to conceive and realize a good idea is more achievable than ever before. There has never been a time when humankind has been more connected than today. The highway for high-speed innovation and mass collaboration has been slickly paved for us. As we all know:

In 1998, two friends from Stanford questioned convention of search and discovery and set out to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

That mission was accomplished, and we call it Google, and use it every day to find answers to just about any question.

In 2004, a college student dreamed of a website that would give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected than ever before.

As a result of Facebook, what were once niches are now robust interest groups. Fragments have coalesced to formed masses, and power has become completely democratized.

And finally, in 2006, a team of technologists designed a simple tool that would give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers.

Twitter, as you know, went public last week, and has enabled great—and sometimes not so great—ideas to flourish, dictatorships to be overthrown and anyone, anywhere, with access to the internet, to mark their existence, follow others and be followed.

Sharing is second nature to any internet user. Collaboration is a byproduct of our everyday behavior online. Technology is making it frictionless and fun.

So what does this mean for our films?

It means we need to get in on it.

If properly engaged and coordinated, the ability of our audience is far more powerful than that of our institutions. Nobody understands your brand better than your audience, and nobody is more capable of expanding your audience than your audience.

Today, as a result of the innovation from the titans I just mentioned and so many others, we can attract masses not by brute force, but by willing engagement.

So, done right, what does this look like?

Let’s examine the difference between advertising and crowdsourcing.

Crowdsourcing is creating a community and voluntary workforce behind your content.

Advertisements can start to perish once they are aired or printed, while communities grow organically and infinitely, as long as they are nourished.

There’s a film releasing today, Veterans Day, with over 116 engagements called Honor Flight. It’s about an organization that raises funds to make it possible for elderly veterans to visit the monuments in Washington, DC, erected in their honor. When the producers of Honor Flight first approached traditional distributors, few were interested. Then they decided they would take matters in their own hands and reached out to veterans groups across the country—in big and small towns—to see if they’d be interested in promoting screenings in their communities. The incentive was that they would not only be responsible for bringing the film to a theater, but could watch it with fellow servicemen and servicewomen, and their family and friends. We—Tugg—worked with them and ultimately achieved well over 150 screenings booked across the country.

The premiere of Honor Flight was hosted at a baseball stadium with the community and the filmmakers. That event broke the world record for most tickets sold to a movie event.

What’s more is that the filmmakers took this proof of demand that was established in the crowdsourced campaign to the distributors. It went on to become one of the top selling documentaries on iTunes for several weeks, and today it’s re-opening in a theatrical release across 27 cities and 116 engagements.

Of the 10,000 people who saw the crowdsourced campaign, 5,000 opened emails this weekend and promoted the film. As we all know, that’s a pretty astounding open rate. Because of the community-building conducted by the filmmakers during the earliest stages of the release, when people received these emails, they didn’t appear as a sale pitch. They felt like an invitation from a trusted source, even a friend. As a result, a flightless film literally took off.

Another example is the documentary about the mega boy band One Direction. Here’s an example where there is no shortage of awareness. When one of the band members tweets about brushing his teeth, most of the teenage world hears about it.

But how do you turn noise into concerted action?

In the week leading up to the release, Sony asked the fanbase: Who wants it most? By Sony taking the time to identify the highest concentration of fans around the world, Tugg then provided event pages and gave those fans the opportunity to become active advocates: marketers in the purest sense of the word.

Three days ahead of the release, thousands of superfans experienced the film early not as viewers, but as participants. While we and Sony achieved something meaningful, so did those fans, and they knew it. And they talked about it.

The social media that was generated from all this planning and activity wasn’t just about a movie; it was about a micro-movement. Now, this movie is theirs. As Wired magazine founding editor said best, “Access is ownership.”²

While these two examples are on completely different sides of the spectrum— one a truly independent film and the other a widely released blockbuster— the success of both came from the same realization that the social capital of the core fanbase was as valuable—if not more valuable—than physical capital, and the result was something money couldn’t buy.

More importantly, the community created during these initiatives continues to stay with the film, as an active community behind the film. Both efforts realized that before they could get something from their fans, they needed to first give something to their fans.

So now let’s go back to the game we played a few minutes ago. Except this time, I hold in my hand a check written from an anonymous benefactor in the audience for $1,000, which, if we all whistle together in harmony, will immediately be sent to the Red Cross Philippines Relief Fund. So, who’s with me? Can we do this? If you sense any doubt or hesitation from the person sitting next to you, give them a little nod of encouragement. HERE WE GO: 1 … 2 … 3.

(RB note: Approximately 95% of the audience offered a strong, cohesive whistle.)

See, the difference there, versus what I did before, is that we were all in together for a collective goal, not just something I wanted YOU to do for ME.

So, to wrap it up, when you get back to your desk or board your flight home, and you consider embarking on a strategy that involves crowdsourcing your audience, remember this:

The first ingredient to crowdsourcing your audience is committing yourself to fostering a community around your content, which is also a realization that you are just one fellow in a (hopefully) much greater fellowship, and the only way that fellowship will grow is if you set forth attitudes, interests and goals that can be shared by others, passionately.

The most important aspect of any crowdsourcing campaign is not the money raised or revenue generated, but rather the social capital you accrue.

When you open up a channel to enable crowdsourcing you are essentially creating a voluntary army—boots on the ground who will share more passionately and resiliently than any advertisement.

While the road ahead is slickly paved, it doesn’t have all its streets signs. There are no experts in crowdsourcing, just practitioners and students. But if you start today, you will be a pioneer on the forefront of the most exciting thing happening online and in our business today and for decades to come.

Notes

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing

2 https://www.wired.com/2006/06/crowds/