Everyone in the (freelance) pool!

Welcome to the age of the consumer.

First Advertising Age made "The Consumer" agency of the year. Then Time Magazine made "You" the person of the year. Now, four major advertisers are running consumer created content in the biggest advertising event of the year, the Super Bowl. Of course, with stakes that high, three out of the four are using professional production companies to shoot the ads. But still, according to a MSNBC article, Alka Seltzer, Chevy, Doritos and the NFL all held contests where consumers were allowed to submit their ideas for an ad. And last month, I read an article that some guy was trying to get a company to sponsor his marriage proposal on the air and make it their Super Bowl spot. I don’t know if anyone took him up on it, but it was getting serious consideration.

One way to look at it, I suppose, is that you now have a huge pool of freelancers to pull from: basically everybody with any interest. And they’re cheap, too. But, more importantly, they’re passionate about your product. Or they wouldn’t bother to invest their time and energy. Wired has an article called "The Rise of Crowdsourcing" that talks about this new pool of "cheap labor" and how it’s being used not just in our industry but also throughout the business world. It’s a pretty in-depth look at this growing trend and worth a read.

What do we as the creators of advertising make of all this? Is it a trend that will get hot and then go away? Or will it become an every day part of our lives, just as reality TV has? My guess is, with consumers taking more and more control of how, what and when they receive media messages, this will not be going away. It certainly will evolve, but it won’t go away. And the ones who adapt to this new marketplace and make it work for them are going to be the ones that not only survive, but thrive.

Mike McClure: Executive Creative Director to the masses