Viewpoint July 19, 2009, 8:04PM EST

Viralsourcing: Let Crowds Create Your Ad Message

Not only are fans spreading the word about products—they're now helping to design and build marketing campaigns from the get-go

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Ross Kimbarovsky, the co-founder of online design studio CrowdSpring.com, faced a dilemma last December. CrowdSpring, which matches designers with companies that need Web site graphics or logos, was less than a year into existence and needed to promote itself on a limited startup budget.

Kimbarovsky took a page from his own social Web playbook. He asked a group on one of CrowdSpring's online forums for marketing ideas; one user suggested designers contribute a Web site to a nonprofit group free of charge. The group picked a charity that helps fathers of children with autism.

The project garnered attention—enough that Kimbarovsky landed a major new client, LG Electronics, within several months. "It never started as something in our plan," Kimbarovsky says. CrowdSpring's crowd did more than come up with a product concept: They helped market it by chatting among influential people to help the concept take off.

Meet "viralsourcing"—a new way marketers are tapping into Internet audiences to design and distribute products. It's a twist on the familiar online practice of crowdsourcing, or soliciting ideas from large numbers of people, often via the Web.

Viralsourcing combines elements of crowdsourcing and viral marketing. In viralsourcing, the crowd helps design and promote products. Burger King's (BKC) offbeat "Subservient Chicken" Web video reached millions of people, but an agency designed and shot it. With viralsourcing, the crowd creates and spreads the campaign.

Savvy marketers are combining the cleverness of informed crowds with familiar viral marketing tactics in several fields:

• Executive Recruiting. When Best Buy (BBY) Chief Marketing Officer Barry Judge decided to hire an "emerging media marketing expert," he posted a blog and a Twitter message inviting readers to "help us write the job description." Getting the audience involved spurred a flurry of activity on Twitter, helping the company reach hundreds of thousands of candidates.

• Auto Design. Peugeot Citroen for the last five years has held design contests, awarding 10,000 euros ($14,120) and a small model to winners. The submissions are often striking. One design last year had an innovative safety feature: air bags separating an egg-shaped passenger compartment from "wings" holding the wheels. The contests generate online awareness of Peugot among auto enthusiasts.

• Sports Management. British soccer fans are known for their passion. The Web site MyFootBallClub.co.uk tapped into that by inviting fans to buy and run a soccer club in 2007. The promotion attracted more than 20,000 people and 300,000 pounds ($489,840) to purchase the Ebbsfleet United soccer team of Kent, England. Today, fans run the team, deciding which players make the roster and which companies sponsor its uniforms.

• Music. Market researcher Peter Sorgenfrei recently founded Crowdbands.com to let fans provide input on decisions such as what venue an artist should play. The Web sites Sellaband.com and Slicethepie.com offer similar crowd control of music acts. "You get immediate buy-in" from the audience, "which creates a viral marketing force," Sorgenfrei says.