مقاله سال ۲۰۱۷

Successful crowdsourcing ventures require more than an online platform and some kind of brand connection. Without an understanding of participant motivations and behaviors, casual attempts to leverage the wisdom of the crowd may backfire and lead to unintended results. Prominent examples of crowdsourcing failures are myriad. Consider General Motors, which provided users with web tools to make their own ads for the Chevrolet Tahoe, resulting in a number of viral videos that lampooned the company’s products and the American automotive industry’s gas guzzlers more generally. In the fast-moving consumer goods industry, Mountain Dew successfully crowdsourced part of its product developmentthrough the Dewmocracy contestseries, but a similar project asking fans to name the brand’s new apple-flavored drink brought on a slew of ironic suggestions, including ‘Diabeetus.’

GetSatisfaction (2015), an online platform that extracts insights from consumer conversations about products and services, identified two mutually dependent markers of crowdsourcing success: engaged people and high-quality content. In crowdsourcing, consumer skills, knowledge, and other resources are leveraged as a community (i.e., crowd) to create value not only for the focal firm but also for the customer. Indeed, we argue that it is a customerdetermined value that drives engagement and contribution, and ultimately influences the success of a crowdsourcing venture.

Research has identified a variety of reasons customers may contribute to a brand, such as a desire to learn new things or to gain a reputation (Fu¨ller, 2010). We argue that participation in a creative crowd creates value for the consumer through identity construction and expression. As in the physical world, customers construct online identities by associating themselves with virtual signs, places, communities, and possessions (Belk, 2013).