Last fall, we wrote here about “When Crowdsourcing Goes Wrong”, which pointed out that when a sponsor’s major motive for crowdsourcing is marketing and awareness, the crowdsourcing program itself is often flawed, with potential backlash on the sponsoring brand. We used The Pepsi Refresh Challenge and the Mad Men Casting Contest as two such examples.
So, we’re not all that surprised to see Pepsi Refresh in the news again, only this time with allegations of voting fraud, as covered in The New York Times.
If you’ve been following Pepsi Refresh since the beginning, you remember that it was initially conceived as an alternative to doing Super Bowl ads. In other words, it was conceived as a marketing and awareness program. And most of the articles I’ve read mention that the program has been a “huge” success, not only because they’ve given away more than $20M to charities, but because, as Fast Company put it last week, “Pepsi has received more positive PR than it ever could have by spending the same amount of money on advertising.”
Now don’t get me wrong. I think it’s wonderful for a company to build its brand and get market awareness for doing good and being socially responsible. Throughout the Refresh program though, I’ve wondered if Pepsi has put enough thought into where the money goes, how it’s used, or even if it’s given fairly.
To do crowdsourcing “right”, it’s critical to care about the outcome and make it priority number one. Also, if you run a campaign with a big prize you must recognize that, unfortunately, there is high likelihood that someone will try to game the outcome, and be prepared beforehand, not scramble to cover after the fact.
It’s important to care about the outcome because the entire design and execution of the campaign flows from there. We always start by identifying the desired output from the crowd and work backward to design. It just doesn’t work to do it any other way. The model you use, the incentives, the crowd you engage, and many other considerations all flow from the desired outcome.
When it comes to gaming, your technology should have safeguards in place and reporting alerts to identify any suspicious activity so you can address immediately. Yes, with good data access you can always eliminate the votes of suspected “gamers”, but its always better to nip it in the bud and either prevent gaming altogether or eliminate it when it starts.
One of the most fundamental concepts of crowdsourcing is that crowds can be remarkably intelligent. So, if the playing field isn’t level for your crowdsourcing campaign, you should count on your crowd figuring out that it isn’t. Better yet, make sure your campaign is designed right up front, with the right safeguards in place to help ensure that the playing field is level, otherwise it might come back to haunt you. Pepsi might be finding this out the hard way, again.