Transcapitalist

Thursday marked the launch of Victors & Spoils, the world’s first creative advertisement agency built on crowdsourcing principles.

The company is based on the idea that bringing together the leadership and management of an ad agency together with the diverse creativity of crowdsourcing can create a new business model that can change the industry.

The company is still figuring some things out.  The logo and branding for Victors and Spoils will be the first project to be outsourced.  The compensation for designers also seems to be a work in process.  However, the company’s founders have made it clear that they believe that all participants should be rewarded in some form for being a part of the creative process.  As they state in their blog, “members will not only be rewarded for the solutions they develop (both individually and as a group) but also for participating in the community itself.”

In a response to the controversy surrounding spec and to shed more light on compensation, Victors & Spoils explains in another post:

“Now if you’re thinking that “crowdsourcing” has gotten a bit of a bad rap lately from the “No-Spec!” movement, you’re right. It has. And we believe those naysayers make some really great points. So another thing to know about our model is that each V&S project will always yield more than one winner (Victors), will always provide more than one way to “win,” and will always have some of the largest rewards in crowdsourcing (Spoils) attached to it.  And perhaps the most important thing to know about our model is that all of these ways to contribute and win will build each creative’s V&S Reputation Score (or better name TBD).”

It doesn’t seem that Victors & Spoils plans to set up their own crowdsourcing platform for the time, but instead leverage existing ones, such as CrowdSPRING, 99 Designs, and Genius Rocket. 

As the company continues to develop its operational process it will be interesting to see what develops.  Will it make more use of social networking principles to build the community that its founders envision? Will decision making be limited to the company managers?  Will it truly become a place where talent is developed, so that even if participants don’t win a prize they win a better chance at a job somewhere else in the long run? I believe that this new company has many opportunities to innovate a new model that truly uses the masses to create a better product.  A part of how successful it will be in doing so depends on how far it is able to limit the “sweepstakes” model.  But there is also room for adopting new and innovative tools and processes.  As the first of its kind, I look forward to following its development.