From Pepsi to Folgers to Doritos to the neighborhood business down the road, corporate decision makers are letting the public call the shots on marketing strategy. They’re asking you – yes, you -- to come up with slogans and taglines, jingles and theme songs, logos and business names, products and flavors.

Let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at how this crowdsourcing phenomenon was born, shall we?

Scene: Boardroom. Marketing meeting.

CEO: Sales are down nationwide for Big Box USA. Consumers aren’t responding to our current promotions. What’s our next move?

CMO: Well, we have an extremely talented agency that we’d like to bring on board to conduct thorough market research, delve into our company, evaluate the effectiveness of our current campaign and present us with mind-blowing new concepts that are not only entertaining and refreshing, but effective as well.

CEO: Brilliant. Love it. Perfect. How much is that going to cost us?

CMO: Because they’re a team of seasoned professionals with a proven track record of successfully rebranding companies, they charge about [INSERT HOURLY RATE HERE].

CEO: Ridiculous! Ludicrous! We need to shore up our assets. How can we get new ideas without having to pay anyone anything, and without doling out any kind of rights or credit?

CMO: Well, I’m too lazy to come up with anything myself, and since you’re too cheap to pay a professional…. maybe we could just ask the public to do it for free?

CEO: Yes, but what kind of person is going to deliver quality work without getting paid or having rights to their concepts?

CMO: We’ll tell them it’s a contest and promise them some kind of prize and instant Twitter stardom! We can make 'em happy with a one-time cash prize and they won't even realize they should be getting three times that amount, nonetheless actual rights or royalties from their work! They’ll fall for it hook, line and sinker.

CEO: Genius! Let’s roll it out.

And scene.

While crowdsourcing may seem harmless enough, it’s becoming a real problem for agencies and creatives.

Crowdsourcing is unreliable.

Ad Age said it best: Give a million people a shot to hit a hole in one, and someone probably will. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to bet on some random dude to win the Masters. In other words:  Yes, if you open up your marketing strategy to the world’s population, someone may very well come back with an amazing idea. It might even work. But relying on the odds of finding this needle-in-a-haystack for every marketing need isn’t prudent. When you want expert results, go to the experts.

Crowdsourcing often produces a lot of crap.

One advertising and PR agency turned to the public when coming up with their firm’s name (An agency who can’t even come up with their own name? That’s a whole other blog.). In the end, they picked the user-submitted idea of “Pyxl.” Does this remind anyone else of the Sci-Fi/SyFy debacle? I have no doubt that Pyxl employees some talented, creative minds -- I find it hard to believe that the group couldn’t come up with something better than that. Folgers has opened up their new jingle to the public, and apparently the results are less than impressive. And when Kraft asked the public to name it’s new Vegemite offering, they were stuck with “iSnack2.0.”  Yikes.

Crowdsourcing cheapens our industry.

(Or, as my mother always said, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”) Agencies work hard at producing the best work possible for the client. From cultivating top talent to spending countless hours in research and development to pursuing continuing education opportunities to hone their craft, we invest a great deal of resources – financial and otherwise – into our work. When Joe Shmoe provides a logo for free, he’s really saying, “Hey! My work is totally invaluable, inconsequential and means nothing!” This hurts anyone who is trying to make a living in our industry (agency people, freelancers) – and in this market, that’s the last thing we need. Our work is valuable. We should demand fair compensation and credit for the concepts we produce. If we continue to respond to crowdsourcing requests from companies who -- very simply -- are too cheap to pay for work, we're screwing ourselves out of jobs.

Crowdsourcing panders to the public.

Companies often think that by crowdsourcing, the public will think they’re cared about and will translate this warm, fuzzy feeling to cold, hard cash. While engaging the public is incredibly important for any company’s marketing needs, few individuals are naïve enough to think that Big Box USA cares deeply about their wants and needs just because they want free creative work. The public should be insulted that business are asking them to work for free under the guise of a “fun!” promotion.

Crowdsourcing is played out.

Doritos, Kraft, Heinz, Mountain Dew… everyone is crowdsourcing these days. What used to be a unique promotion is now becoming old news. This means fewer people will pay attention to the contests or take the time to submit their ideas, and as a result the work procured will continue to slide in quality.

Look, if I break a bone, I’m not going to hold a contest to see if some random person can fix it, even if I might get lucky and wander upon a world-renown doctor who doesn’t want any cash for his services. Rather, I’m going straight to the experts, even if it costs me.

Creative, strategic and interactive work should be viewed the same way. Let the professionals do what they do best. We’re in this field for a reason, you know.