Baked In Author Winsor Takes Crowdsourcing to The Agency Model

Over the past couple months, I’ve had the tremendous opportunity to meet and work with John Winsor, author of Baked In and former Executive Creative Director at Crispin Porter + Bogusky. He is a tremendous mind that explores the vast reaches of crowdsourcing and co-creation abilities as they relate to product design, message creation, and brand building. A few weeks ago, John informed me that he was going to leave CP+B and start a new venture (with more information to come). Well… today is that day.

Along with another CP+B alum Evan Fry and Claudia Batten, formerly of Massive, Winsor has taken crowdsourcing to the weathered ad agency model and formed Victors and Spoils. This new Boulder, CO agency had a great article written this morning in the New York Times explaining the tremendous shift in consumer sentiment… The very shift that will allow for crowdsourcing ideas to become an extension of the Victors and Spoils creative department. The article states:

“The goal of his new agency is to “get more people involved in the creative process,” Mr. Winsor said, but “not winner-take-all and not free labor,” citing two common complaints about crowdsourcing competitions.”

What an amazing idea, one that I hope to be able to watch and learn from. It’s an amazing world in which we marketers live. We should take a page out of John Winsor’s book and rise above the ever increasing fears of the ad industry and shoot for something great. This is the type of action I wanted to see from my post a few days ago. This action will prove to be inspiration for us all.

Good Luck to you John and all your team at Victors and Spoils!

Lifestyle Design

Yesterday, Alex Bogusky and John Winsor held a live video chat about their upcoming book Baked In (which you can read my review here). Being a huge fan of the book, I had take part. Basically, the theory behind the book is that companies need to create a product/marketing development process with the understanding the marketing will be baked into every aspect of the product, brand, and company. It’s an amazing thought and one that actually has some similarities to thoughts that I’ve had over the past year or so.

My basic thought is that with the power transitioning from the marketer to the consumer, the consumer is now looking for products/services/brands that can be integrated into their own personal lifestyle. The influx of social communications and tactics like crowdsourcing and mass customization, the consumer is now able to design their lifestyle with the brands that define them, as a foundation.

During the video chat, I asked the question “It seems like marketing is moving more towards ‘lifestyle design’ for consumers, what are your thoughts on this idea?” The guys had some great points, but needed some clarification about what “lifestyle design” is (which is hard to do in 140 characters or less). My response was [Lifestyle design is] the marketing’s role in integrating a product or brand into the lifestyle of the customer… becoming a part of the [individual] customer’s life. Not bad, but I wanted to take this time to elaborate on my definition and get your feedback on what you think.

Lifestyle design is really a collaborative effort between customers and the products they use to create and maintain the best life for each individual customer.

Lifestyle design is really a collaborative effort between customers and the products they use to create and maintain the best life for each individual customer. We all use brands and are loyal to brands for many reasons, including the seldom talked about, personality definition. Some of us choose brands because of the way it makes us feel or the way we are presented to the outside world with the brand. This psychological choice, coupled with the increase in personalized communications with brands, creates the shift toward lifestyle design.

What are your thoughts? How are you trying to integrate your brand into your customer’s lifestyle?

Are you Half Baked or “Baked In”?

What a Great Ride!

Where is marketing going? Is marketing as we know it dead? What role is co-creation and crowdsourcing playing into the minds of your consumers? How do your customers actually feel about your “brand”? The answers to these questions and more might surprise you and show you how the current state of marketing is not working.

Over the past couple of weeks; I have had the honor to preview the new book “Baked In” by Alex Bogusky and John Winsor or Crispin Porter + Bogusky. It’s been one hell of a ride. Thanks guys for letting me be a part of this.

Bogusky and Winsor are specialists in mind bending, mind freaking ideas that take traditional thought, turn it upside down, rub it in the dirt, and make it shine again. From the very moment I received this book, I knew I was not holding a mere pile of papers, but a pile of ground-breaking ideas; I must take heed.

Baked In isn’t a marketing book per se, but a complete transformational thought of how we all need to build and structure our business models and communication channels. It illustrates how we need to “Bake In” our marketing, advertising, and communications into and throughout our product design, operations and business strategies. This thought ensures a powerful message/story… One that resonates with the consumer by shifting power to the consumer and giving them the platform for loyalty.

The book starts out discussing the current state of business with product development and marketing being two completely different silos within the organization. Within this structure, the Product Development people are creating one story for the product through the development process while the Marketing department is creating a completely different story for the product to try to better integrate it into the marketplace. Bogusky and Winsor outline 4 possible outcomes with this current structure:

1. Product has no story and neither does the marketing.
2. The product has no story, but the marketing makes one up anyway.
3. The product has a story, but the marketing tells a different one.
4. The product has a story, and the marketing makes it sing.

As you can see, there is only one outcome that works throughout the marketplace and organization. This strategy makes the “Product” the single most important marketing tool a company can have. When marketing and consumer interaction and feedback is baked into the product, the customer feels a brilliant sense of ownership and becomes loyal to, not only the brand, but the way the product fits into their personal lifestyle.

The meat of the book is dedicated to the 28 recipes to help companies take a step back and look at their current processes and how to make the shift toward a “Baked In” organization. Each recipe comes with thought provoking examples of current integration and mind freaking ideas of how to incorporate into your organization.

The greatest part about this book is that it not only talks about the social nature of business, but actually involves itself in that same social realm. It’s more than just a static book, but a conversation and collaboration going on right now as we speak. By visiting their blog www.BakedIn.com you can see how conversations are forming around the different recipes described in the book. By simply conversing on Twitter (@bakedin) you can become a part of this amazing conversation. The book isn’t just for us, but the ideas and thoughts moving forward are by us. Learning about “Baked In” is only the beginning, becoming “Baked In” is the outcome.

Bogusky and Winsor have created a masterpiece and have turned our traditional way of thought on its ass. Do yourself a favor… go out, buy the book, and join in the transformation. You risk your future success without it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing in detail some ideas about my favorite recipes in the book and will be participating highly on the conversation on Twitter and www.BakedIn.com. I hope you follow along and participate. To make sure you don’t miss a word, simply subscribe to my blog here and follow me on Twitter (@paulmiser). I look forward to making this transformation with you. Let’s get “Baked In” together.