Crowdsourcing has been used for many things since the mid 2000s and businesses are using it on an almost industrial scale. When it comes to marketing and innovation, the world's biggest brands use crowdsourcing - asking the global crowd for creative, innovative and/or insightful ideas through online competitions - and use this diverse output to innovate faster or advertise better. In this presentation, given at the 2014 BAQMaR Conference on November 26th, 2014, I address how global crowdsourcing helps brands get fresh creative inspiration for both global and local problems. I present some insights into the composition of the global creative communities, the work that they do for brands, the most unlikely people to inspire massive advertising campaigns as well as scientific research findings that relate to this emerging phenomenon.