Presentation

Presentation: MSI Innovation Series Webinar: The Power of Losing Ideas in Crowdsourcing Contests: How AI Can Leverage Non-Winning Designs in the Luxury Fashion Industry

Page Moreau

University of Wisconsin - Madison

Feb 10, 2025

Download
Despite decades of growth in crowdsourcing contests, the core model has remained largely the same: companies encourage many submissions to select a few winners, often leaving the majority of ideas unused. For example, Lay’s received 2.8 million submissions for their “Do Us A Flavor” contest but awarded just one $1M prize, raising the question—could those non-winning ideas have value?

 

Our research explores whether companies can unlock value from the vast pool of unused ideas, leveraging AI to transform the traditional crowdsourcing model. In a unique collaboration with Missoni, AWAYTOMARS, and IBM, we conducted a real crowdsourcing contest for a Missoni T-shirt collection. Using AI trained on non-winning submissions, we compared the value of AI-generated designs to crowd-selected winners through experiments and a real market test. The results reveal how AI can enhance innovation and disrupt the traditional crowdsourcing process.

By using MSI.org you agree to our use of cookies as identifiers and for other features of the site as described in our Privacy Policy.