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In a recent AdAge piece, resident curmudgeon and truly great media observer, Bob Garfield, discussed a new “expert crowd sourcing” model that is making waves throughout the agency world.

At the forefront is the virtual Victors & Spoils founder John Winsor, who says the concept is to “create a new operating system for the advertising industry” utilizing the skills of hundreds of freelance creative thinkers. Thus, the client comes away with a great campaign or creative idea while paying only a fraction of the price.

We witnessed this first-hand at jacAPPS, our mobile apps division earlier this year. We were in need of a new logo but the last thing we wanted to do was spend thousands of dollars to have agency or even graphic arts company do the work.

So thanks to our tech savvy sales rep, Alex Young, we turned to www.logotournament.com.

For a mere $400 (we could have cheaped out and only offered $275), we had artists from around the globe submitting logo ideas and concepts. We even had the ability to contact designers whose ideas were in the ballpark, but needed a tweak or two, a different color treatment, or images moved around.

At the end of the process, we had more logos than we knew what to do with, and more importantly, several wonderful possibilities without having to spend the big bucks. And we had the benefit of scores of designers working on our “account.”

OK, they’re not all winners, but that’s always the case when you go through this exercise. And the bottom line is that we had a lot of really good ideas to choose from without investing a lot of money.

And that’s the point of Garfield’s article, and virtual agencies like Victors & Spoils, GeniusRocket, Poptent, and GiantHydra. Instead of a single shop attempting to develop an idea or solve a problem, you have hundreds of creative thinkers working on your project. As Winsor points out, “We’re trying to create a meritocracy.”

How can we use that same line of thinking in the radio business? How can we utilize the collective brain power of our audiences – or even the entire industry – to solve problems, create our way to new solutions, and do better work more efficiently?

And by the way, here was our winner – a designer from Istanbul, Turkey who uses the screen name ysonmez. He’s a 45 year-old graphic designer who has worked at national agencies as an Art Director and Creative Director. How would we have ever run into this guy here in Southfield, Michigan?

There’s more to crowd-sourcing than just a catchy Internet name. Let us know your thoughts below.

Paul Jacobs, takes a look at the mobile phenomenon and a recently released set of numbers that are truly impressive.  Let’s take a ride on the mobile juggernaut.  This post ties in to yesterday’s SoMo discussion.

In a recent presentation, the head of digital venture capital leader Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr, summed up the future of digital with three cryptic abbreviations:  So Lo Mo

Doerr was referring where all digital is unstoppably heading:  Social   Local   Mobile.

Now, data has come out that makes us sit up and take notice – the explosive growth of local/mobile ad spending.

According to a recent study released by BIA/Kelsey, mobile ad spending is going to explode from $790 million in 2010 to a projected $4 billion by 2015.  And what is going to fuel this growth?  It will be driven by local businesses who will account for a projected 70% of that total.

The issue isn’t that local advertisers aren’t spending money.  Not enough of them are spending money on radio.  But they will be spending it, and it’s goin’ mobile.

If you work at a radio station, check in with your traffic department and see how many businesses you have on the air this week.  It’s probably fewer than 100.  Now, how many businesses are there in your market?  Thousands?  Hundreds of thousands?  And how many are using radio?

Sadly, not enough… And it’s largely due to new digital options like Google AdWords, Groupon, and Living Social.  Too many advertisers are reasoning they don’t need a 12-time spot schedule to reach their target effectively.  Their focused on that bright, shiny object known as digital interactive.

Fortunately, radio has the ability to provide consumers and advertisers with great digital options and solutions, driven by trusted, familiar brands that they’ve known for years.  Our mobile division, jacAPPS, has built apps with significant sponsorships, and will soon announce a scalable digital platform for mobile that combines aspects of Groupon and AroundMe, baked into a station’s mobile app.

Our company is providing a local display advertising package with our partnership with Verve Wireless.  And of course, CBS and Clear Channel are creating competitors for Pandora, which will have sponsorship potential.  Many radio stations have created “perks” or other discount programs (although those haven’t fully gravitated to mobile devices yet).

The bottom line is that radio is moving toward digital, and there’s new momentum and data that suggest that speed and strategy are both of the essence.

Mobile is the ultimate game changer.  While many radio broadcasters have recognized the mobile opportunity by creating mobile applications, there is so much more opportunity to make mobile a bona fide revenue generator.

Stations can create apps for major station events and concerts.  Taking it further, they could create an app that is exclusively devoted to participating bars and restaurants in the area.  Or a local concert/event guide.  Ski reports.  Women’s issues, if you’re an AC station.

And on and on.

And what is radio’s advantage over Groupon and other digital competitors?  Radio has cume that can drive audiences to download these apps, giving them a real jumpstart in the mobile marketplace.  Stations also have the ability to promote them on multiple platforms, including websites, their email database, social media, etc.

Radio truly holds the cards.  So the question is whether it has the vision and “the stones” to aggressively play them?

Success is more than a competitive rank in this month’s Miller-Kaplan.  That’s a game where “winning” is getting smaller and smaller.

Digital can be the difference-maker.   These local mobile revenue projections signal opportunity with a capital “O.”

It’s time to focus on Lo Mo.

As we learned up close and personal in “Goin’ Mobile” last year, social media and mobile are dual accelerants – each feeding off the other – and growing in ways that were previously unimaginable.

Facebook’s impact on our lives continues to amaze us, as the numbers rise meteorically, including people that we never dreamed would be involved with social media.  How many times a day do you hear the word Facebook in conversation and in media?  (More than you hear Google.)

And then there’s mobile.  In Techsurvey 7, we saw smartphone acquisition rise 56% from last year’s study.  And we’re nearing that majority tipping point with our rock radio respondents.  Many analysts believe that smartphone sales will grow by more than 50% in 2011 in the U.S.

Social feeds off mobile – and vice-versa.  And to illustrate this symbiotic relationship, a newly released comScore study, “The State of the U.S. Mobile Advertising Industry and What Lies Ahead,” shows that the biggest year to year increase in mobile is its use for social networking.

In March 2010, 40 million U.S. consumers accessed social media with their phones.  One year later, and that number has exploded to 60 million – up 45.7% (circled on the chart below).

So how does this data inform your mobile strategy?  If you have a mobile app – congratulations.  The opportunity to be on the hottest devices ever is a plus for your station and helps to give your listeners a chance to hear you in more places, not to mention a sense of cool.  Give yourself an extra 10 points if you have an individual station app, allowing you to truly showcase your brand right alongside Pandora, Facebook, Google Maps, and the New York Times.

But if your app doesn’t include social media connectivity, the comScore data suggests that you may be missing a golden opportunity to better engage with your rapidly mobile audience.  The chance to go right to your Facebook page or your morning DJ’s Twitter feed while your audience is in the dentist’s waiting room or watching their kid’s ballet recital or in between innings of that baseball game is too big to pass up.

Give your app the once-over and make sure that it’s socially in-sync with the changing tastes and habits of your audience.  Google’s Eric Schmidt pointed out in a speech earlier this year that one of the implications of smartphone ownership is that we’ll never be bored again.  If you carry a smartphone, you know exactly what he’s talking about.  We have never seen a time or boredom killer quite like the smartphone (or tablet).

And given the consumer’s need to be in touch – especially via social media – chronicling even the most mundane aspects of their lives in words, pictures, and videos – social media connectivity via phones is a natural confluence of culture, connectivity, and technology.

We have not witnessed a greater change in overall lifestyle and business communications in our lifetimes.

Decades ago, radio set the pace for live and local entertainment, music discovery, and current events in hometowns everywhere.

Now more than ever, radio needs to keep pace with its listeners who are very much setting the pace themselves.

Next up, we’ll get a little LOMO on you as we take a look at he incredible local mobile revenue opporunity and why it will only get better.

Check out the onstage introduction of Twirlr, a new social-sharing platform. You won’t be disappointed.

Watch Video Here

“By utilizing social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, we are actually building loyalty through customer service and creating a two way conversation,” says Jason John, Sr. Director of Online, Mobile and Social Marketing at Gilt Groupe. They collect and analyze responses from customers to improve their mobile offerings. Gilt is continuously improving their mobile applications by adding cool and useful functionality based on customer comments and internal research.

Full Story Here