Brilliant Minds Attract - New Agency Victors & Spoils

Brilliant minds attract.

I was blown away by John Winsor (co-author of Baked In) when I met him at the Alex Bogusky Baked In book launch in NYC and now and ex-CPBers Winsor and the ubber creative talent Even Fry have teamed up with former Massive (a advergaming company) founder Claudia Battens started a new agency, Victors and Spoils.

Created as the world’s first creative (ad) agency built on crowdsourcing principles, the goal is to provide businesses with a better way to solve their marketing, advertising and product-design problems by engaging the world’s most talented creatives. Simply check the involvement any creative mind can engage.

What is Crowdsourcing? The consumers and clients demand transparency.  The consumer’s demand to be more involved in a brand and its authenticity and clients’ budgets have all but made the need for effectiveness and authenticity part of the message and the brand. Crowdsourcing gives both a clear voice and dialog to insure communication and rapid change. In fact ownership.

The crowdsourcing is not for most clients because the number of possible solutions created and the effort to keep things on strategy for a brand can be overwhelming.

Victors and Spoils will work like a crowdsourcing platform. At the core of the agency is the creative department. A creative department made of everyone from art directors and copywriters to strategists and producers who come together to solve strategic problems. A global digital community that will not only be rewarded for the solutions they develop (both individually and as a group) but also for participating in the community itself. Total democracy. Again cehck how you can get involved in the process.

Taken from the V&S website explains:

It’s “Victors,” plural, because we never reward just one winner. And we always have multiple ways to win. So not only do our monetary “Spoils” always go beyond first place {we award for 2nd, 3rd, etc}, we also reward for participation. All of which will build each creative’s V&S Reputation Score - which will help determine a share of the revenue for each project. It’s a model we’re building every day. And it’s a model we believe in. One that combines the best of what a creative agency can do and the best of what crowdsourcing can offer to arrive at solutions for your (any) brand that are strategic, forward thinking and most importantly, effective. Let’s work together.

John co-authored Baked In with Alex and is a major force behind the concept of "crowdsourcing", a basic concept of empowerment of the audience and their relationship with brands and at the core of Baked In.

Evan Fry was VP/Creative Director at CP+B on some of the biggest and most interesting brands, Best Buy, Domino’s, Alliance for Climate Protection. Shimano and Giro and Nike. Evan recently started a social network all on his own called  befuckingawesome.com a wonderful site for anyone to act and live by sharing their "awesomeness" with the world.

Claudia Batten was a founder of Massive – a  company with enough vision to see video gaming as more than an entertainment medium, but turning it into a full-blown advertising network. In three short year Massive became the industry leader and made "advergaming" a part of intelligent media integration.

All the best to V&S, and I have already registered. One of the first assignments offered on Twitter was to design the V&S logo. 

Follow the link to get involved.


View full story from the New York Times by Stuart Elliot