How can digital communities be built, nurtured, rewarded and motivated for a win-win proposition? Here is a primer on managing crowdsourced output. By Bruno Pellegrini, Userfarm. Presented at Crowdsourcing Week Brussels 2014. More info: http://crowdsourcingweek.com/

1. USERFARM:
THE CONTENT CREATORS’ WAY

2. OUR GOAL
To be the first choice
for content creation
by major brands,
publishers, broadcasters, e-tailers.

3. OUR MISSION
To galvanise the skills and creativity of
our global network of filmmakers,
and produce compelling and quality
videos with rapidity and scale.

5. VIDEO RULES, EVERYWHERE!
Video is no longer a “nice to have”. Today, any large global or
local brand produces hundreds of videos every year as part of
it’s communications approach:
Video Advertising for OnLine, Mobile and Social channels will grow up to $20BN in 2017
(global media spending) and recent data confirm the need for local adaptation, personalized
messages, real time communication.
A constant stream of fresh and original Video is a must for growing and engaging Social
audiences on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, Instagram, G+, etc.
Video is more and more used for product tutorial, corporate presentation, CSR activities,
customer reviews, private convention or public event, top management comms, in-
store information, consumer insight to name a few.
“Video Contests” are frequently included in marketing campaigns as a tool to maximise
engagement and visibility.

6. Production experience
Video Amateur: little experience or new
Videomaker: active users
Filmmaker: chosen for quality and skills
Pro Teams: professional production teams
Skills
Advertising: TV ads, virals and promo video
Fiction: short movies, web series,
Animation: animation, illustration and CGI
Video Art: music videos and digital art
Narrative: documentaries, storyteller
We are a global network of
55,000+ content creators.
Our creators come from 120+
countries with extensive
presence in US and Europe.
Our team classify each creator
based on his profiles and past
contributions.
WHO WE ARE

7. Our studio is a state of the art
digital collaborative space
where content creators get
info on open projects, create
groups, participate, find
material and tips, receive
assignments, complete tasks,
discuss with moderators,
submit proposals, win prizes
and get paid.
OUR STUDIO

8. We work with leading brands, agencies, publishers and broadcasters
to produce tv commercials, on line video advertising, viral video,
corporate and product video, web series, tv shows, documentaries,…
WHAT WE DO…
Call For Videos
Creativity / Visibility
Pro Pitch
Quality / Creativity
Direct Assignment
Quality / Time

9. Our Smart Production Model allows to achieve significant better performance
than the Traditional one in terms of:
Cost: our cost are 70% less on average vs traditional model
Scale: there are no limits in quantity of content we can produce
Time: we can activate creators in few minutes and produce real time video
Creativity: our clients can choose from a wide creativity and many point of views,
Ubiquity: we can run global as well as city specific projects at the same time
Under full management and total respect of code brand and values
OUR MAIN BENEFITS

10. CASE STUDY
Candy Crush Saga
Among 60 approved submissions
King selected 5 winners. 24 hours
after posting the winning video on
the Candy Crush Facebook Page
there were more than 41,000 shares
registered. The post further
generated over 48,000 likes and
5,500 comments (all organic, no paid
post promotion) resulting in a total of
1.13 million views.

11. CASE STUDY
Ferrero (ITA – 2014)
The client wanted to produce a web
series around the main character of
Kinder Pinguì (ie Charlie the penguin)
so we launched a pilot contest on
Userfarm receiving more than 60
proposals, a dozen of very high
quality.
At the end of the process Ferrero
acquired the rights of 2 pilots and is
now producing the first series.

12. CASE STUDY
Nokia Lumia 925
Nokia France asked for 5 viral
videos to highlight 5 different
features of the new Nokia Lumia
925.
In less than 1 month, through a Pro
Pitch, the brand selected 5 ideas
and we managed the production.
Each video reached high levels of
views and engagement on
Facebook and YouTube.

13. CASE STUDY
Barilla
The Video Contest platform was
used by Barilla to launch a call for
video around its new Sauce
positioning and delivered exceptional
results:
 200+ video submissions
 1,2 million total video views
 50k Facebook interactions

14. KEY LEARNINGS FROM OUR
EXPERIENCE IN CROWDSOURCING

15. KEY SUCCESS FACTORS FOR A
CROWDSOURCING VENTURE
1. GROWING DEMAND
1. GROWING SUPPLY
2. DISECONOMIES OF TRADITIONAL MODEL
I believe that a new crowdsourcing based player can benefit from the combination of having an
emerging demand – thus not proposing just as a substitute for the incumbent players but trying
to serve a new segment of the market – and a fast growing supply market – making accessible to
more and more people the technologies and skills to produce at the level of the traditional
model.

16. DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCTION
MARKET ESTIMATE AND FORECAST (EURO BN)
Assumptions
1. Budget for the creation of video to be used for OnLine Video Advertising is considered 10% of the total in 2012 and 15% in 2017 due to the tendency to have always
new, fresh, original, real time, personalized content for an effective campaign.
2. Budget for the creation of video to be published in brands’ social channel, without paid media, is considered to be growing from E0,15BN in 2012 to E1,0BN in 2017
(50% CAGR)
3. Budget for the creation of video to be published on brands’ site (product review, corporate video, etc.) is considered to begrowing from E0,2BN in 2012 to E0,9BN in
2017 (30% CAGR)
4. Budget spent from publisher and broadcaster to create original video for online distribution is expected to grow from E0,3BN in 2012 to E1,5BN in 2017 (50%
1.17
1.82
2.66
3.83
4.85
6.57
0.00
1.00
2.00
3.00
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

17. KEY LEARNINGS
The early days of crowdsourcing are
gone, the model needs to be
continuously investigated and
upgraded to become a sustainable
competitive advantage.

18. USERFARM MAIN AREAS OF
INVESTMENT
1. UPGRADE ACTIVATION MODEL
2. PROFILE THE CROWD
3. SIZE MATTERS BUT NOT AS YOU THINK
4. TECHNOLOGY IS CRUCIAL
Since the beginning we invested on some specific areas
of our business and specific to crowdsourcing (on top of the
others which are commons to any start ups)

19. ACTIVATION MODEL
How to activate and coordinate the crowd to
deliver the best results?
Open Call to harvest the widest creativity will not suit for Pro
Private Call respects privacy but limit visibility
Private Pitch is good for quality less for quantity
Direct Assignment can be managed step by step
Micro Tasks is fine when different skills are required
Group Participation can improve final quality
At the beginning crowdsourcing was mostly about “open call
/ contest”, now it is all different and much more complex

20. PROFILING
It’s not a crowd anymore.
The more you know each member’s skill, quality, reliability,
devices used, location, experience, (…) the more you can
engage/activate them differently and improve the overall
efficiency, performance and retention.
We created a dynamic ecosystem for our crowd which is
based on different clusters to give filmmakers the aspiration
to grow and our internal team the knowledge to activate
them using different model.

21. SIZE MATTERS
But not as you expect.
The right size of the crowd is related to the number of
projects run, the time to complete a project and the fina
rewards given.
In most cases the real contributors are between 500 and
5,000 and represent no more than 5-10% of the total
members.
The rest is just talent scouting to ensure a constant refill of
the crowd and recruiting of the best profiles to replace those
which are leaving for their careers.

22. TECHNOLOGY
The core of any crowdsourcing venture
The real goal for any crowdsourcing venture is to let the
technological platform become fundamental for any process
of the company, not just a front end site for the projects and
the crowd.
In the mid-long term the platform will be the key asset of the
company, totally customized for its needs, and the first
barrier to entry for other players.

23. THANK YOU