Ad Club Bangalore wakes up to the idea of crowdsourcing

The Advertising Club of Bangalore has finally decided to redesign its logo and website. Surprisingly, the logo is more than two decades old and the website has been in existence for the last five years. Neither has been revamped even once since inception, even though the website (adclubbangalore.net) looks very basic and has limited information.

Instead of assigning the job of recreating the website and logo to a creative agency or Web studio, the Advertising Club has decided to utilise the power of crowdsourcing, and involve advertising professionals across India in the revamp process.

For this, the Club has initiated a contest, in which advertising professionals can form a team of three and submit their logo designs. Apart from this, participants will also be required to send ideas or features that could be added to the new website, as well as recommend ways to create an active online community of ad professionals in Bangalore. Participants have to send their ideas and designs to a specific e-mail ID.

The winning logo design will be used as is, while the Ad Club may alter the website design and features suggested by winners. The winning team or entry will get a prize of Rs 30,000 and a special mention on the Advertising Club Bangalore website.

Explaining the reason behind crowdsourcing, Malavika Harita, president, Advertising Club, Bangalore tells afaqs!, "The ideology of the Advertising Club is based on the concept of participation itself. So, it makes sense to let the ad professionals get involved in the creation of the new logo and the website; and thus get a younger theme or look for both."

"We don't want a corporate-type look for the Advertising Club Bangalore website. Instead, we are looking forward to website ideas, which have the potential to become an online community and an interactive platform, where communications professionals from Bangalore can arrive and participate virtually," she adds.

Harita indicates that the idea of developing an online community is rooted in the fact that offline events do not take place across the year; while the website could act as a bridge to connect advertising professionals in Bangalore throughout the year.

The Ad Club is promoting the crowdsourcing-based contest via e-mail marketing and word-of mouth advertising through Ad Clubs in other cities. The last date for submitting entries is July 25.