Learning the Lessons from Open Innovation Failures
The open innovation and crowdsourcing landscape is dotted with many fine success stories of companies that have worked well with smart and savvy crowds. The case histories offer plenty of inspiration for those thinking about embarking on OI initiatives.
But just as important to our OI education is discovering stories of those crowdsourcing projects that did not go according to plan – and learning from their mistakes.
Over on Search Engine Watch, Simon Heseltine has published an article entitled Crowdsourcing Gone Wrong: How Brands Can Avoid Messy Marketing Mistakes.
The article features five examples of crowdsourcing campaigns that crashed and burned. And he follows them up with some short, sharp lessons on how to avoid making similar errors.
One example he includes is that of Durex. The company was about to launch a new service where emergency contraception would be delivered swiftly to couples in need in cities across the world. To get the word out Durex’s marketing team decided to crowdsource suggestions from the public about which city the service should launch in.
It appeared the crowd was not willing to play ball and decided to stretch its comedy muscles. The devoutly Muslim city of Batman in Turkey was voted in first place. Durex closed down the campaign and the service.
To avoid making mistakes with OI and crowdsourcing campaigns, the article’s author suggests a number of steps.
These include:
Setting boundaries – for example, Durex could have compiled a list of 20 cities and asked the crowd to vote on them.
Monitoring and moderating – this would allow a company to take down inappropriate comments and suggestions.
To read the article in full click here.
Add your Comment
[LOGIN FIRST] if you're already a member.fields are required.