Idea Bounty Update :: Vodafone, Actimel & Paddy Power Round Off
Daniel Neville
First off we would like to acknowledge that this update contains some news that some of you have been waiting to get your hands on for a long long time - we completely acknowledge how frustrating and annoying it was to have waited so long for news and send our deepest apologise for the long wait. We have learnt some valuable lessons while round off the briefs from Vodafone, Paddy Power and Actimel which we will be very sure to take forward with us when we plan our future briefs. But now for the news you have all been waiting for
Vodafone
We received a number of really solid ideas in response to this brief but unfortunately due to some changes internal time slipped away from the Vodafone team and as a result they will not be awarding a winner. Below are some words from the Vodafone brand team:
"We would like to thank everyone who submitted a solution to this brief - Vodafone were very pleased to see such a broad range of ideas and they along with us want to thank you all for the effort, creativity and interesting thinking you poured into your submissions. However, after an extensive review process we will not be announcing a winner for this brief. We will be awarding Silver and Bronze awards to those of you who managed to make it into the shortlist listed below. Thank you once again for all your creativity and effort."
Jamie Axford
Ben Pincus
George Shewchuk
Kevin Baldwin
Andrew Cahill
Greg Albritton
Charles Ugwuh
Michael Van Wyk
Romina Vinci
Mario DaCosta
Kevin Lucas
Actimel
Yet again we would like to thank everyone who submitted a solution to this brief - we were very pleased to see such a broad range of Ideas and want to thank you all for the effort, creativity and interesting thinking you poured into your submissions. After an extensive review process the Actimel team found it very hard to reach a point where there was an obvious winner. Unfortunately due to this process being so extensive time slipped away and as such the Actimel team has decided they will not be announcing a winner for this brief. However we would like to properly acknowledge all the time and effort you all put into this brief and in the words of Sam Barton the Actimel brand manager:
“Although our objectives changed and we weren’t able to award a winner we were impressed by the range and strength of ideas turned around to a really tight deadline”
Of course we will also be awarding Silver and Bronze awards to those of you who managed to make it into the shortlist listed below.
Rob Kamara
Nataliva Deleva
Daniel Simpson
Ondrei Kratky
Kevin Baldwin
Sophie Knox x 3
Paul Treleaven x 2
Paddy Power
The team at Paddy Power also had a rough time going through the submissions and although they were really impressed with what you sent their way they struggled to find that one stand out idea that blew them away. Some comments from our side here - often while we were looking through some of the ideas we felt that although they were brilliant ideas in the sense that they were fresh, creative, exciting and new they were often very expensive exercise if you wished to try and execute any of them. Don't let this take away from how awesome some of the ideas were - we just felt that this point was a large reason why there was no clear winner. Over all thank you for your wonderful ideas - there really were some amazing ones that came through. We will as normal be handing out Silver and Bronze Awards for this brief but first some words from the Roberto Coladangelo who heads up the Paddy Power team:
“We’d like to thank everyone for contributing their ideas, we were impressed with the breadth of responses! However we didn’t quite find the gem we wanted and have not been able to progress with any of them yet. We have a few that we will still review at planning sessions and if anything changes we’ll let you know! Thanks again we really appreciate people helping develop our brand.”
Richard Harris
Renars Abins
Jake Mavity
Cari Purcell
Sevanjit Paranavitana
Julian Myburgh
Shiraz Eiphick
Iain Stevenson
Dave Barton
Michael Johnson
Jed Mowat
Rob Kamara
Well that is for this bumper update - we are once again very sorry this has taken so long to tie up and we are even more disappointed that we do not have any winners for you. But that, as they say, is how the dice rolls. Thank you once again for all your creativity and effort guys and we look forward to seeing your ideas for the Top Gear brief.
Comments
So 3 companies have decided no idea is worth paying out. It neither reflects well on them or Idea Bounty.
Unless you gain a guarantee of payment in the future I suggest you do not take on clients. What as easy cop out for a client to declare none were worthy. Most of your clients wouldnt know what a good idea was if it bit them on the bum, judging by their previous marketing efforts.
Hi Richard - Your certificate will have a "CI Number" on it. That will indicate which idea got you to that awesome position. Keep chasing that Gold, it WILL com! Well done dude!
George - it is definitely disappointing. Unfortunately, as you would know in this industry, it is very difficult to convince a client that an idea will work for them if they themselves do not believe in it. The client must want that idea to work in oder for it to succeed.
While we will continue to work tirelessly to make sure that more bounties are paid out - as is evident by the Disaronno Bounty, the biggest one to date - we do not want clients just buying an idea and then shelving it. We want your ideas to be bought because the client loves them and they want to produce it and make it into something big.
We want your ideas to shine and for other companies to know that the creatives of Idea Bounty are different in that their work ALWAYS get's produced and is always something that the client will be 100% happy with.
It's a give and take relationship and I am sure that when you win a bounty one day, it will be just as important to you to have your idea produced as it will be to receive the money. To us, it is extremely important that the client has picked you idea because it is good and not just paying you a bounty just "to keep you quiet".
I sincerely hope it doesn't discourage you to stop submitting ideas. Thanks again for your ongoing support and keep those ideas coming in the Top Gear challenge!
Hi George,
Just adding on to what Zac has said above.
1) Our clients are not bound to picking a winning idea if there is nothing submitted that they think answers the challenge to their satisfaction. Like Zac says for an idea to work (even a good one) the client has to believe in it and want to make it happen. For this reason if there is no idea a client likes then we are not going to push them to purchase one. This also means that all ideas purchased in past brief are ideas the clients have really liked and believed in and were thus willing to pay (the Bounty)
2) Yes it is disappointing that no solution was found but there is no fool proof way in the world to come up with great ideas every single time and no situation where a client will agree to a guarantee that they will picking an idea, not even in an agency. In the above three cases the clients felt that the brief they posted did not dig up that 1 big idea that blew them away - I also have to point out that there have only ever been three clients on Idea Bounty who have not chosen ideas to date - all in all that means 3 briefs with ideas not chosen next to 20 where ideas were chosen. Not bad you have to agree... and remember in all the cases where an Idea was bought the client made the call - in other words they REALLY liked those ideas.
3) In all the cases above (except for Paddy Power who do all their own marketing internally) the briefs were run in conjunction with the clients agency - so the client was not alone in choosing that idea. There were 'pros' involved! It was also unfortunate the both Actimel and Vodafone experience some rather large shifts in positions at a senior level which meant that there were some very different ideas about what the winning idea should be half way the judging process. This was something we unfortunately could not avoid.
Like Zac said I really hope this does not discourage you from submitting those ideas! If you have any other questions or would just like to chat you can also grab me at daniel@ideabounty.com
Just a thought, but what is in place to monitor/prevent/act upon a situation where the client says no to all the ideas and then uses one in a very similar shape or form at a leter date?
May be a bit cynical but if they do not pay out on any bounty, then surely they have then just benefitted from the cheapest nation-wide (world even?) brainstorming session known to man???
Maybe a prize regardless of the idea ever being used, if only to ensure they honour the bounty and someone gets rewarded. That's not coming from a place of greed, but more recognition and a return from the client for all the input they have recieved.
I'm sure IB is still receiving payments in some shape or form (time and admin at least) - maybe the client and/or IB should put up a smaller bounty for a winner regardless of the idea being used.
Just seems a little empty to say, thanks but no thanks, no prize, but 100s of ideas for free (or v. limited costs)
Sorry to go on, but hopefully a couple of valid points....
I wrote a long email to Idea Bounty referring to the "not paying problem" in September.
Now it happened again, so I decided to publish the modified piece online. I want to open the discussion why it's so important to pay the crowd. Always.
-> Link
(Seems like I can not to link from here?)
Hi Daniele,
First if all thank you for your constant feedback and always being willing to discuss your concerns. Believe me, we have also been trying our best with regards getting the client to pay out a bounty.
I did see your tweet with the link to your online piece and, as a sign of respect and opening up the discussion to the community, I retweeted it. I believe that it's important to have healthy discussions about any hurdles that we may encounter along the way so that we can find mutually beneficial solutions.
Once again thank you for your support and for keeping the doors of communication open.
Hi Daniele,
I have responded to your blog post but thought I would also post my reply here. All in the interests of keeping the conversation open.
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Hi Daniele
Firstly thank you so much for your posting your thoughts around this topic - we always strive to be as transparent and open with the goings on at Idea Bounty and we are super pleased to see that we have stirred up so much passion in you. So thank you for keeping the conversation going.
Referring back to some of the comments you made in your post:
The Bertolli brief - which you took home a Bronze for - was the first time we had a client who reached a point where they felt that there was no solution that hit the nail 100% on the head and worked towards achieving the goals the had set out to reach. This was an unusual case since they had already taken one Idea (submitted by Kevin Baldwin) on to a testing phase. Subsequently following the announcement that no Bounty would be awarded it was decided to pay Kevin a 'consolation' prize of $1000 as even though his Idea did win the Bounty it was good enough for the client to at the very least take it to the next step (testing) - we did update the community on this development see: http://www.ideabounty.com/blog/post/2768/idea-bounty-update-bertolli-wrap-up
Then following on from your comments about a "Bottom-up" approach and your assertion that "It is also their job to convince the best of the creative crowd that it’s worth to think about one powerful idea for free. Or even two or three of them."
On the bottom up front I agree with you but would put forward that Idea Bounty is in need a bottom up approach if we understand what you are saying here. In a traditional situation a client would pay a retainer to an agency to produce a set number of ideas a year - of these possibly one or two will be bought and used. This means that a client is paying more for the ideas they end up using than is strictly necessary - I won't go into numbers here but im sure as an ex planner you know how large and exorbitant these agency retainers can be. Crowdsourcing (And Idea Bounty) turns this on its head and approaches the problem from the other way around. Working from the concept that anyone is capable of coming up with a creative idea Idea Bounty is designed to do two things (1) Give people who want to take part in these kind of challenges as way to do so while providing them with protecting for their IP and rewarding them for it. And (2) give clients a way to source creative ideas outside of costly agency retainer models.
So there are a couple of things here which make this a bottom-up approach in our mind.
1) The playing field has now been flattened and anyone can submit ideas in response to a creative challenge. I must point out that Idea Bounty really does only look for ideas which really does level the playing field almost completely (unlike sites like Crowdspring which you mentioned where 80% of the time you have to have some sort of craft skill be it copy writing or graphic design to participate) We have had winners in the past who have submitted written ideas no more than a paragraph long and have walked away with a Bounty. We have really tried to set the barrier to entry here as low as possible and we think this shows in the make up of the community - To give you an idea roughly 45% of the Idea Bounty community work professionally in the marketing, advertising communications industry - the rest are people who have day jobs that range from accountants to stay at home moms.
2) Client now have a way to source ideas in answer to challenges in a new and different way. There are two facets to this (1) The cost of sourcing the idea is known up front and is far less than an agency retainer - this usually means the the client actually ends up having more money for the execution of the idea because they have spent less coming up with it. As as result it is more likely a client can choose bigger and more elaborate executions as a result. It also gives the client an opportunity to find idea that are often a little more fresh and new. (2) It gives the client another tool when it comes to cracking those problems that have just not been solved yet - this is a very useful thing and can only be active through the diverse community of Idea Bounty.
3) Those ideas that do win creatives who do submit winning ideas are rewarded in full with an amount disclosed upfront and know both to the client and creative. In some cases the Bounty amounts are more than your average creatives monthly salary. We set this up based on the idea of what we call an open ideas economy - where by each individual will assets how much time and effort they are willing to put into a submission based on the challenge posed as well as how exciting the brief is and the reward on offer - it really is up to each individual to decided if they would like to take part in a specific challenge or not. And if they do take part how much effort they think it is worth them putting in.
This last point speaks to your assertion that "It is also their [Idea Bounty] job to convince the best of the creative crowd that it’s worth to think about one powerful idea for free. Or even two or three of them." Which again I would agree with.
We are very clear and upfront with the way we operate and state that a client will only purchase an idea if there is a solution to their problem that they like - we do not hide this fact at all. In truth we would love to hand out a Bounty for every brief even if there is no winner. However the way Idea Bounty is set up (each creative retains their IP unless sold - exchanged for a Bounty) does not allow us to pay out a Bounty if there is no winner as there is no transaction taking place. Like I mentioned we do agree that even if there is no winner you deserve something - to this end we make an effort to recognise those who submitted especially outstanding ideas and in the future we are going to be adding more features to further our efforts to recognise quality work - for instance one of the features we will be launching will be a leaderboard which will rank the community according to how well they have done in a single month with the top 5 positions taking home a prize.
Over and beyond $ there are many other reasons people have given when asked why they take part - some people are just a fan of the brand posting the brief (the current Top Gear brief being a perfect example) Others who work as a creative professionally just want to work on something different, usually to keep skills sharp or just because they will never get a chance to work on a brand like Red Bull for example. Some just because they find it fun and have some spare time. Remember that many of the submissions we receive are often written ideas with perhaps some stock images and a rough sketch to illustrate a point - Like I mentioned above it is up to the individually to make the call on how much time an effort they put into a submission and some people have won with almost no effort at all. Our Red Bull winner won after submitting an idea that took her 10 min to write down after she had a party with some friends and had some good fun playing around mixing drinks. Our Levis winner won with an Idea that was no more than eight or nine sentences long - an idea she came up with on the way home from work. On the other hand some people do put in lots of effort - but this is their call to make.
Moving on to the specific briefs you bought up from Paddy Power, Actimel and Vodafone. In all these cases the briefs were problems that the client was struggling to crack before they were bought to the community - these were tough challenges and the ideas received were great. Unfortunately in the case of Actimel and Vodafone there were some changes internally which resulted in creation goal posts for the brand being moved and the challenges the briefs posed and thus some of the solutions did just not fit. We are as disappointed as all of you that there is no winner is these cases but unlike Bertolli no idea was taken forward to a second phase be it testing or further development. This means that the client did not purchase a solution and as per our terms and conditions we could not pay out - or demand our client pay - a Bounty. Again I agree with you that this is a massive disappointment and we really do wish that we could reward you all (or even just one person as you mentioned) and we are working towards a point where we can start doing something like this.
Lastly the certificates - This is something very small that we do in the interim time between now and when we can put in place a solid rewards system for constant top community members to recognise those of you who submit very good ideas in answer to a brief. They all contain a quote from the client involved as well as a signature from a client representative. Yes they are not much but we have had some students tell us they have used them in portfolios and other have used it to argue for a raise or promotion. We know it is something very very small and we are making plans to reward, glorify and praise you the creatives as much as possible in the future - which is why I am so happy that you started this discussion too.
To close off I think you stated something we believe very strongly when you said " Making absolutely sure that your community is 100% happy – even if most of them don’t hit the jackpot [is good thinking]" - we really do want to make you 100% happy so I hope my above reply has answer some of your questions. No doubt you will have more so please fire away and lets keep this conversation open.
Cheers,
Daniel
~ Idea Bounty Captain
daniel@ideabounty.com
I've unsubscribed due to this, and unLIKEd on FB.
If you make a promise - you should keep it.
Hi Michelle,
Im sorry to hear that you are leaving - I am however a little confused as to which promise we made that has been broken.
If you are referring to the fact that there were no winners and thus no Bounty paid out for the above briefs - at no point do we make a promise that our clients are going to award a Bounty. Only that they will choose the idea that they like the most and award that idea the Bounty - if there is no idea they like no Bounty is awarded. Fortunately over the 23 briefs we have hosted this has only happened three times. So infact the community has done really well in providing solutions our clients wish to purchase.
I hope this makes sense - if you have any more questions/issues or would like to chat about this more please ask away.
Cheers,
Daniel
~ Idea Bounty Captain
daniel@ideabounty.com
richard harris on 05/12/2011
Quite a shame they couldn't pick winners, but v. excited to be top of the Silver list - that's my third award now! Still chasing that elusive gold tho'.
Will you be able to let us know which ideas made the list as I entered a few for Paddy Power?
Anyway, about that silver... woooooooooooppp!!!