Holotof is a
network of "advertising creatives", which enables businesses to come and pitch them work -
in the form of ad projects and campaigns. The idea then is that creatives submit ideas for
the pitch and the client chooses the best one to work with. The site was launched in May
this year by Robby Ralston, a native of Peru. Robby told me via email that Holotof
currently has 900+ creative professionals from 68 countries signed up. His description of
Holotof:
"Advertisers from all over the world will drop their briefs at holotof and we will sent them our ideas in return. They will choose a winner, who will get the cash award."
Of course, dropping your briefs is liable to get you in trouble some places... but in Holotof it is a chance to get creative people competing for your business. I like the idea and it seems a good way for advertising creatives to get work - especially for young or inexperienced creatives, who are trying to build a reputation in their industry.
Robby referred to it as a combination of web 2.0 and crowdsourcing (a term coined in June this year by Wired, which means using "a combination of volunteers and low-paid amateurs" to carry out work traditionally done by internal staff - e.g. R&D work). In the case of Holotof, it brings together a crowd of creative individuals and lets them compete for advertising work.
Holotof is very similar to the current wave of jobs websites, such as oDesk - which R/WW mentioned in our review of the Web 2.0 Summit Launchpad. oDesk describes itself as an "on demand global workforce" and the idea is to be a marketplace for technical talent - as with Holotof, individuals essentially compete to land a contracting job. oDesk also provides web-based tools to manage remote teams, which has been a little controversial because it includes monitoring and click tracking software. Incidentally the controversy has been neatly turned into a positive by oDesk, even to the point of oDesk users waxing poetic about it:
"Each 20 minutes, a screenshot appears,
of the desktop for the guy I just hired.
At the end of my day, I can view on a page,
the events of his day that transpired.But oDesk knows that there’s more to manage,
and throws some treats in the mix,
a vertical bar beside the photo,
counting all his mouse clicks!"
But I would imagine Holotof doesn't need to go to those lengths, as advertising creativity is not really a thing you can measure by mouse clicks!!
Anyway, Holotof guarantees its clients get at least 10 bids/ideas for their advertising briefs. Their business model is that clients pay for usage of the system - rather than a set monthly fee or a commission.
It's unclear at this stage how much business has flowed through Holotof, but I think the idea itself is promising and we'll increasingly see this kind of use of web technology in the global workforce. Speaking as a New Zealander, I can see huge benefits to both kiwi workers and businesses in using such a system to get work outside our tiny country.
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Hey, this is indeed a great idea in the advertising space.
It would be amazing to see how advertising professionals from different countries and context compete on a level playing field and successfully create advertisements for different countries/context!
"the Largest Talent Base in the World." this is what is displayed on the holotof site. I think the concept of holotof can be used to deliver many other services across different industries. It can fuel and deliver a lot of innovations and new ideas.
Cheers,
Abhishek Sharma.
www.iconfluentia.com
Posted by: Abhishek Sharma | November 27, 2006 9:48 PM
So it is elance plus oDesk for the advertsing community.
Posted by: Pramit | November 27, 2006 9:50 PM
Great idea...but isn't a lot of advertizing very culture specific? Sure there are some universal ideas but more often then not, a presentation that one community finds appealing might not work in a different community.
Perhaps these guys should look at delivering regional content for regional clients.
Posted by: Jitendra | November 27, 2006 10:04 PM
Hi Jitendra:
Thanks for your interest in holotof.
You are right... a lot of ads are culture specific. But then again, most of ads are not. Just remember Nike, Coca-Cola or Apple... they focus on our commonalities rather than in our differences. Big brands!
On the other hand, logos, brand designs, merchandising, websites... are global in most of the cases.
This being said... your idea of "Regionals holotofs" is very interesting! Who knows, maybe some day when we grow bigger.
Yesterday we passed our 1000 creative talents goal. We are just starting. Hope to see you there!
Un abrazo,
Robby!
Posted by: Robby! | November 29, 2006 8:05 AM
how is this different from Adcandy? Are there other competitors?
Thanks and good luck!
Posted by: ventureblogalist | December 13, 2006 3:49 PM
Hi ventureblogalist:
Thanks for letting me know about Adcandy. I have just checked the site roughly. It seems -I may be wrong- a site oriented more on the fun side of Ad business, allowing people to create slogans and submit ideas they have on any product or any brand.
As they say in their FAQs "Adcandy is meant to stimulate ideas for people in the advertising industry and to entertain the rest of us."
holotof is Pro oriented. It has nothing to do with entertainment. We are talking of real pitches, for real brands, won by real Creative Pros.
Merry Christmas to you and all the readers of Read/Write Web!
Posted by: Robby! | December 22, 2006 7:21 AM