GAP bows to the crowd!

With the crowd sharing in a torrent of criticism on social networks, GAP decided to go back to the old blue. There were thousands of tweets and Facebook updates deriding the new logo design and the company was quick to accept the power of crowd and even went a step further asking people on its facebook FAN page to come up with design suggestions calling it a “crowd sourcing project”, once again proving Jeff Howe’s theory on power of crowd souring.

Jeff in his book on crowdsourcing has mentioned that it’s the crowd which will drive the future of business and GAP is a classic example where social media mobilized the crowd to forced GAP to scrap the new logo. Jeff had used strong examples like why companies as big as Procter & Gamble repeatedly call on enthusiastic amateurs to solve scientific and technical challenges? How companies as diverse as iStockphoto and Threadless employ just a handful of people, yet generate millions of dollars in revenue every year? He defines, "Crowdsourcing" as a phenomenon through which power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the responsibility of a specialized few. He shows why the crowd is more productive than a talented individual.

99designs which is one of the largest creative marketplaces provided a platform to designers who wanted to share feedback and designs to GAP, informally, and saw over 4500 logo designs submitted in last 5 days. The winning logo will be decided by community vote and will be provided to GAP management as a gesture of goodwill.

A quick take on GAP’s new logo effort

• For a B2C brand which is driven by the consumers, crowdsourcing is proving out to be a strong contender for marketing campaigns and brand building exercises
• With more than 5000 entries in 5 days it might be a better option to try a closed set of participants rather than going out to the complete crowd.
• Brands like GAP needs to understand the role of experts along with the end consumer who need to drive the crowdsourcing campaign
  

Creative crowdsourcing platforms like 99designs, crowdspring.com, geniusrocket.com, jademagnet.com and others have found acceptance in form of not just SMBs but also big brands like Unilever, Pepsi, Dell which are changing the way they market, to incorporate more crowdsourcing and opportunities of co creation clearly putting a challenge to top down traditional businesses who have been resistant to accept the rising tide of these nimble, young companies which are pouncing on the opportunities.

The advantage of disruption is how most of these crowdsourcing companies portray themselves and I think consumers are now coming to the terms of this changing guard.