My Experience In Branding/Naming: The Good,The Bad,The Ugly:A Review of Crowdspring:2011
My Experience In Branding/Naming: The Good,The Bad,The Ugly
:A Review of Crowdspring:2011
(Crowd sourcing intermediary:First letter has been removed to protect anonymity.)
"All work and no pay make Johnny a starving boy."-Richard Brockenflabel
*I recommend reading this first*
*Read This:CrowdSpring – A Writer’s Story*
https://brianjosephstudios.com/design-contests/crowdspring-a-writers-story/
I'll cover the Good and Bad, then Ugly in another post. No wait, uh... the Good
and Ugly, followed by The Bad in another post later.
The Crowd Sourcing Process
Read This:*A Brief Desc of Branding Process:Brand Naming Process: How to Make a Brand Name Resonate*
https://stickybranding.com/brand-naming-process-how-to-make-a-brand-name-resonate/
To those not initiated, crowd sourcing works like this; a client
needs a brand name for a new product or company name. Often this will require
finding an available domain .com name, not currently registered. So you have to
make sure your domain name submission is available/unregistered before submitting it.
(I will post another article later on Domain Search Engines.
I found inconsistent inconsistencies in Domain Search Engines,
which I found to be puzzling at best.)
Your competing with other people as well, in a form of a Contest.
The intermediary crowd sourcing company advertises that hundreds of thousands
of other people working or competing with you. But when I was submitting
the number was approximately between 800 to 2000 other submitters.
Nobody is being paid while submitting, the only time you are compensated
is if you win or beat out the other submitters. Compensation varied
between $100 to $500. Average compensation was about $150.
Another way of describing it is; "Get 1000 people to work for Free".
So the parties who benefit are the client and the intermediary.
It's a gamble, even for the best submitters.
You are given between one to two weeks to come up with a Brand/Product Name. You are given a clients description of what they are looking for in their name. This varies from a couple of sentences to a few paragraphs.
Why I quit. Basically Five reasons.
1.)Dubious Events or what I like to call The Dubiosity Of It All.
/'d(y)o?obe?s?de/
Dubiosity[doo-bee-uh-s-i-tee] noun
1.The thought that conveys dubiousness in its entire scope.
3.)Too Small Of A Compensation.
4.)Not Being Able To Communicate With Clients.
5.)Crowd Sourcing Structure Of A Contest To Earn Wage Is Dubious.
1.)Dubious Events or what I like to call The Dubiosity Of It All.
Dubiosity[doo-bee-uh-s-i-tee] noun
1.The thought that conveys dubiousness in its entire scope.
Its hard to keep track of name submissions. I wish I had a database program
to organize the 40,000 names and words I ended up generating. I submitted a
much smaller number to Domain Search Engines and an even smaller number to the crowd sourcing intermediary.
What I define as dubious is this. Many .com names I submitted to the
intermediary that they rejected would later become registered almost exactly
six weeks after project end? After this happened several times, I submitted an
enquiry to the intermediary. They later said they investigated the matter but
were unable to find any evidence of wrong doing.
I should note that those first several .com names were registered but
remain unused. They did NOT become company names, but instead became PARKED. Some remained PARKED some became businesses ? What the total number is I lost track of. But it seemed mathematically impossible.
For example if I submit 20 words,one being Turbosquid. Then
6 weeks approximately later it gets registered, then parked. Then start
several new projects and have several other submitted names also follow
that same pattern, what is the mathematical probability of that happening?
6 weeks, unusual sounding unique names, parked and unused? Seemed too
strange to be a coincidence for me. I tried to find history on many names
to track them and see how many were parked, then became legitimate businesses. But after a while a history gets lost;unregistered;or registered. Many of the best history sites I found to be limited and inconsistent.
2.)Many clients would cancel suspiciously a couple of hours before deadline?
After working on a project for one or two weeks and sending in many submissions, they would cancel the project just before deadline closing. The client would have in their possession all of our work? Is the client getting all that
hard work and material for free?
Too Small Of A Compensation
3.)After working for free basically for two weeks, you are either WIN
or LOSE the CONTEST. Even if you win the average payout was $150.
One project submitted their mother company name. I looked it up
on Google. It was valued at 2 billion. They wanted a name for a new
product, with projected earnings of millions but were only giving
a compensation of $150? Why would a billion dollar company even
bother to go to a crowdsourcing intermediary? To save a few
dollars? How much would they save? What would they pay to a serious
professional Advertising Agency for a product name?
Not Being Able To Communicate With Clients
4.)You are not allowed to communicate with the actual client who is buying the
Name. They would either reply with yes or no. If the client provided very little
information to go on, you were not allowed to enquire or ask for any clarification.
Many times they would reply with only Yes or No, not why. They would either
accept or reject your submission.
This results in a great, great, great deal of frustration. Although some rare
times,clients would tell you if you are getting close.
(Not sure why some clients were allowed to do this while most were not?)
(Why not have the clients fill out a 100 question questionaire?, with required
data such as exactly how long the name has to be? Does it have to be a new
created word or comprised of real words? etc etc)
Imagine being blindfolded and playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey?
But doing this involving getting paid or not getting paid?
You can begin to imagine the stress and frustration levels.
I myself would spend most of my time researching fields of study,
subjects, language parts and origins, related terms, etc etc etc.
Then after that phase start generating possible submissions.
After generating as many as possible, I would pick out the best ones,
start using the domain search engines, then start submitting.
I would also add that most companies choose to remain anonymous, but some did not. Not sure why this happened. Less information to go on is more frustrating, because you can't learn more information about what the client actually is like or profile them psychologically.
I believe personally also that many good names I submitted were good
but still rejected. Why? The company or client will finally accept
a name which one person likes but may not be very good marketing wise
in my opinion. But they still end up choosing that name anyways.
For example I worked on a naming project were the client was
Houdini 3D. They wanted a name for 3D digital media outlet. The 3D mesh
modelling software who would competing with Turbosquid. What the? Turbosquid? Seriously what does that have to do with CG, mesh modelling or animation? Octupus are known for being multi limbed, squids are known for spraying ink? Turbo implies speed as in automobiles. Who came up with that name, seriously?
They wanted a new name for a 3D assets site, not a general site like Turbosquid
but only for Houdini 3D assets. I had 3 years experience in 3D modelling as a hobby. I was familiar with the terminology. I believe the names I submitted were good, but for some unknown reason they choose someone else's submission; "Orbolt". Ummm ... not to sound like a nudge, but that name sucks!
Seriously? Orbolt? What is that...half a sentence or what? When I typed
that word into a google search the only reference was to that site.
It doesn't seem to have any reference to modelling or Houdini3D?
My submissions involved 3D terminology and Houdini and their combinations.
So it left me with the impression that it was more important to understand
the psychological profile of the person accepting/rejecting the name than
the markets themselves?
Crowd Sourcing Structure Of A Contest To Earn Wage Is Dubious
5.)So if after two weeks of submissions and they end up choosing someone elses name, then, well you've just worked for two weeks for free without getting
paid?
I worked on approximately 60? projects over an 8 month period and
won 3 contests(which was above average). So the time spent vs.
compensation didn't add up. You have a choice whether to work
10 minutes or 100 hours on a project, its up to you. It takes
you atleast a few hours to get a feel for a particular business
profile,it's terminology and markets.
***Why wait so long before writing a report on my experience?
***Well I just felt like it didn't matter to anybody until I
***saw other people on the internet with similar experiences.
(I will post another article later on Domain Search Engines.
I found inconsistent inconsistencies in Domain Search Engines,
which I found to be puzzling at best.)
