The Top 10 crowdsourcing-fails (places ten to six)

16.10.2012

Crowdsourcing is very fashionable. Why should a company provide huge budgets to product designers and ad-geeks, when they could basically outsource their entire marketing department to Facebook fans and then revel in their success as a social media fox. Whether a shower gel (dm) or a microwave meal (Maggi Topfino), join-in contests are very popular. However some PR managers haven’t bargained on the mischievous streak that can prevail in the Internet community. Here is part one of the greatest crowdsourcing fails…

10: Renate Gerdes (L´oreal, Schwarzkopf)

In early 2011, cosmetic producer L´Oréal tried to launch the “Sublime Mousse” hair color campaign with a model contest. A large majority of Facebook fans voted for 71-year-old Renate Gerdes.. L’Oréal’s expert jury overlooked the selection made by their own fans. Competitor Schwarzkopf seized the opportunity and was able to win over Renate Gerdes to participate in their own campaign.

9: Obama and the Pot-Heads

Submitting crowdsourced questions to the President of the United States was a great idea, it was direct, authentic, grassroot. Barack Obama wanted to answer some of the questions that were submitted to „Open for Questions“ at a press conference. Who would have thought that legalizing marijuana would be more of a burning issue than employment or health system issues? Legalization supporters made full use of this opportunity to bring their issue home to the head of state. Obama’s reaction was relatively tight-lipped: “President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.”

8: New York Mets – Rick´Rolled

Five years ago a popular prank made trouble on the web. Taking advantage of so-called rickrolling, the 1980′s Rick Astley theme “Never gonna give you up” was used to mislead other Internet users. And we know what had to happen when the New York Mets posted a Web poll to select a break song…

7: ISS Colbert

The NASA thought they would let Internet users decide on a name for a new room on the ISS. Comedian Stephen Colbert encouraged his fans to vote for his name. Although “Colbert” won the vote, the NASA decided to select a different name, but did name a treadmill on the ISS after Colbert.

6: Rittersport Döner

With its snappy “from you, for you, with you” motto, the maker of the popular square chocolate bars set out in search of new flavors. Results, that were not compatible with mainstream taste, such as lard with greaves, onion sausage or peppermint fried potatoes were not realized but they were published in a blog.