How NOT To Crowdsource: Lessons Learned From The Gap's Logo Debacle
Posted by Doug Williams on October 15, 2010
For those unaware of Gap's logo fiasco that unfolded over the past week, here's a quick rundown of what happened:
- On October 6, Gap rolled out a new logo that was meant to be "more contemporary and current" than the old blue box logo.
- A vocal group of people who hated the new logo raised a big stink via social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.).
- Via Facebook, Gap thanked the masses for the "passionate debates" and asked fans to submit their own ideas for new logos but did not provide any further details around this alleged crowdsourcing project, particularly with regard to incentives or compensation.
- The idea of Gap requesting "spec work" from fans/consumers/designers under the guise of crowdsourcing caused another wave of dissent, further amplifying the voice of those who disliked the idea of changing the logo.
- By October 11, Gap put the kibosh on the new logo and the crowdsourcing project, and reverted back to the traditional blue box logo.
In Gap's October 11 public statement, the company stated:
“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right time for crowdsourcing.”
“There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes, we’ll handle it in a different way."
In fact, it WAS the right project at the right time for crowdsourcing — or some other form of social co-creation engagement. It's just that Gap did it backwards by releasing the logo and then going to its fans to help fix things up. As my colleague Tamara Barber points out, there seems to have been a distinct lack of strategy on Gap’s part in terms of how to pull this off. Here are a few ways Gap could have improved on the process:
- It could have tapped into its online community to see if they thought a new logo was necessary.Gap could easily have done this via a simple inquiry on Facebook or Twitter. From all the uproar over the past week, it seems pretty clear that fans of the Gap are just fine with the legacy blue box logo, thank you very much. End of story.
- If a new logo appeared warranted, Gap could have gotten fans' input during the selection process.Gap selected a logo, introduced it to the world, and crossed its collective fingers, hoping for approval from its fans. But why not give its empowered fans the opportunity to help Gap choose the logo? This could have been done via a smaller private online community, either one established by a community vendor or one recruited by Gap through its existing social media channels.
- If a new logo appeared warranted, Gap could have conducted a proper co-creation contest to crowdsource a new design.Gap misfired completely when it tried to start a crowdsourcing project after its first-choice new logo fell flat. If there was true interest in developing a co-created logo, Gap should have conducted a proper co-creation contest in the first place. (I describe co-creation contests in this recent blog post.) Such a contest would have given a wide-ranging audience of creatives and fans alike the opportunity to develop a new logo, with proper incentives for participating.
By including consumers in the logo development process, Gap could have leveraged one of the key benefits of social co-creation: creating a marketable attribute. Launching a new logo that was "co-created with our customers" would have generated a lot of positive media attention from this effort. Plus, it would have quelled any potential social media backlash against the winning logo because Gap's empowered customers would have already been made aware of it.
Gap missed a golden social co-creation opportunity, and its attempt to save face by reverting to crowdsourcing was ill-conceived. The silver lining is that Gap's mistake is a learning opportunity for consumer product strategists at other firms.
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Comments
Crowdsourcing may never work...
Forrester has done a nice job of explaining the demographics of online participation, based on a taxonomy they created for the popular book Groundswell. Using their handy online tool you can see how online participation differs between men, women, age groups and geographies. What Forrester doesn't do is explain the types of people that get involved – their mental, emotional and social characteristics, as well as their motivations. What compels people to engage online? What traits do they have in common? Are the most active participants – what Forrester refers to as “Creators” - different from the those who do nothing with social media (what Forrester acidly calls the “Inactives”)? More to the point, what assumptions can marketing and communications professionals make about the people that actively engage with them through social media?
What if these people aren't representative of the underlying population of Gap customers? What if they're all hot-headed extremists?
The premise of crowdsourcing needs to be investigated much more. It may never work for companies like Gap.
Classic answer: "it depends"
Hi Ian,
Great, insightful comments and questions -- thank you for sharing them. As a Consumer Product Strategy analyst, I'm not in a position to answer some of those which are clearly aimed at our Interactive Marketing and Market Researcher roles. But I can comment on the overarching concept of crowdsourcing.
The fact of the matter is that crowdsourcing can work - but it depends on what type of problem you are trying to solve, and what kind of audience you are engaging.
Want to know if you should bother developing a new logo? Crowdsource that idea by taking the temperature of your fans on Facebook. Want to invite consumers to co-create a logo, create a co-creation contest and crowdsource it to an audience of graphic designers. Want to find innovative ways to reduce waste associated with shopping bags (a la Starbucks and its betacup project)? Tap into cultivated audiences of creatives and outside-the-box thinkers. Want to bring back white jeans? Tweet about it and see what kind of reply you get. (Ok, don't bother with that last one, we all know the answer already.) Depending on the problem you are trying to solve, crowdsourcing could certainly be used by Gap or other similar companies to test and develop. But if you pose the wrong question to the wrong audience, you might find yourself in trouble, particularly with the hot-headed extremists.
Social co-creation brings many benefits to the table. Nonetheless, most of the companies that I have spoken with that use social co-creation tools use them in addition to, rather than in lieu of, traditional market research tools.
Gap and Social Technographics
Ian,
Interesting comments and questions. I think social technographics could provide some insight into this situation at several different levels.
First of all, let's look at the backlash. Could it be a couple of hot-headed extremists who reacted? That's possible, but the operative question here is whether those who responded are Mass Influencers--well connected and influential. Plus, since we know that most adults in the US are Joiners and that younger people (Gap's target market) skew even higher, the brand can know that the negative backlash about the Gap's new logo can be dissemnated to many folks very quickly.
In terms of whether Gap should have Crowdsources a logo solution, that depends a great deal on the composition of Creators in their audience. Again, knowing the audience that the Gap wanted to engage, they probably have a lot of Creators. The mistake that was made wasn't to use crowdsourcing necessarily but that doing so must be done in an organized fashion. The best examples of crowdsourcing aren't brands tossing a challenge out to folks but instead to plan and execute an organized program to engage and reward Creators.
By the way, why is it "acidly" to label people as "Inactive" those who are inactive? We don't attribute a judgment to that label, but if we're unaware of an implied or perceived judgment, it would really help us to understand that!
More on why Crowdsourcing may not work...
Thanks both for the very thoughtful responses to my comment.
"Crowdsourcing", seen through the social research lens, has a lot of straightforward sampling issues. Some see the Wisdom of the Crowd, others the Madness of the Masses. Without getting into the stats and math, I do think we should all take a look at the circumstances where crowdsourcing may work, and those where it will fail. It hinges on who is in the crowd, of course.
For more details on this, see http://ianbruce.blogspot.com/2010/03/whos-using-social-media-most.html
Sorry about the acidity on "inactive". I'm guessing you meant this in the "volcano" sense, not the inert or sluggish sense. It can be misinterpreted.
Thanks again.