Skip Ratazzi’s. Here Are Four Virtual Madison Avenues To Whet Your Creativity.

With Mad Men stirring up everything from fashion to the Emmys, it’s time to take a look at the boomlet in virtual Madison Avenues. Once upon a time, wannabee creatives had no choice but to pack their portfolios and head toward Madison Avenue in hopes of finding a sympathetic Creative Director who might pony up a spot in the bullpen or junior copywriter cubbyhole.

Today, with User Generated Content moving beyond phenomenon into mainstream, there are more opportunities than ever to play Don Draper or Peggy Olson from your Mac Mini in Rhinelander, Wisconsin or while parked at an Internet cafe in Corfu. A growing number of sites offer everything from advertising and branding contests to online brainstorming, talent markets, and virtual name/idea generation. Many offer a place to post your profile and portfolio. Others have social networking features and encourage community building. Some promise compensation while others are designed for self-expression, the sheer love of creativity, and sometimes, simply coming to the rescue of your right-brain-blocked fellow artistes.

These newer ones differ markedly from sites like elance.com, which focus largely on skills and services rather than pursuit of the elusive Muse. Elance is about functionality and commodity — finding the best you can for the buck from whatever country– while with Bootb, for example, being global is not in the least about outsourcing.

Take at look at these four virtual Mad Avenues.

Here’s how Bootb describes itself: (Count how many times and ways it uses the word ‘planet’)

BootB is the Pitching Engine that brings Brand Builders and Creative Brains together. All around the Planet!

What is the usual way for Brands to quest for Creativity? If they have the opportunity to choose, they start a pitch and select the best proposal from a limited number of participants. BootB is designed as an online alternative to that process that has no offline limitations.

BootB platform is built to run Pitches. You can start your own Pitch and get Solutions from an unlimited number of Creators from anywhere on the entire planet. In this case we will call you a Brand Builder. Or you can participate in any Pitch you like and publish your Solutions that will be received directly by a Brand. Then we will call you a Creator.

As a result - instant access to Unlimited Creativity for everyone on the planet!

Guru’s Take on Bootb. $$$  This site is dead serious about this planet stuff, offering content in 12 languages and even making up their own special jargon-rich Bootb lingo. The look is hackneyed black and white with neon colors used for that handwritten, I-am-too-hip for Helvetica ambiance. The projects do indeed appear to be international, with a shopping center in Russia, an Italian magazine being marketed in China, UNICEF and big brands like Clearasil and Lego. Compensation ranges from $800 on upwards to around $12,600, with a (seemingly introductory) Bootb prize of $100,000.    I wish I could get past Bootb’s annoying attempts to be coolier-than-thou because I do appreciate the global opportunities. But the silliness of ‘becoming a Citzen of the Bootb Re-publi-ca” and other time-wasters ruin what could be a genuinely cool place.

BrainReactions is an online brainstorming site, with several levels of access, ranging from Free to Ultimate at $199 a month. Here’s what they say about themselves:

Do you need fresh, actionable, innovative ideas?

BrainReactions exists to serve organizations that need to look both inside and outside themselves for ideas for new products, programs and promotion. No organization has a monopoly on thinkers or thought. Often, it is an idea from someone from outside the corporate environment, who has no particular interest in or knowledge about the organization who can provoke a turn to a new, winning way.

In addition to customizing, teaching, and facilitating “idea generation for innovation” sessions within organizations, BrainReactions provides “Outside Insight” for our clients, perspective that is intentionally external to an organization and its culture. BrainReactions brainstorms generate a huge number of ideas in a short period of time to stimulate an organization’s innovation process. The sheer volume of ideas produced in our work invariably gives rise to a number of good, actionable ideas for our clients.

Guru’s Take on BrainReactions. I really wanted to like BrainReactions, especially as it was founded by Cheeseheads at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Plus I have rich, robust experience as an Ideator, Trained Brain, Generator, Idea Bunny, whatever label you’d care to use. So over the past couple of months, I spent a good deal of time on the site, contributing ideas to a wide variety of posted open brainstorms. It can be fun and kind of addictive. The problem is the lack of incentive — and I don’t just mean money. Day after day I posted gems and never got even the slightest ‘thank you’, response to my posts or even an update on progress. I tried opening a room or two for my projects and got largely drek. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t appreciate the creative stimuli, which I agree, can come from anywhere or even from the drek-iest idea. Interestingly, the Monjee contest, promising a grand prize of $150, generated the most for the site: 826 ideas.

It is entirely possible that BrainReactions consulting services, which seem to be extensive, are as fresh, actionable and innovative as they say. But their online brainstorming site, which while functional, simple and a no-brainer to use, doesn’t have what it takes to make it a truly useful business creativity tool.

CrowdSpring is based in another one of my favorite former hometowns, Chicago. CrowdSpring calls itself a Marketplace for Creative Services. Buyers can post a project, asking for a new logo, website, marketing materials or custom illustration, and indicate how much they’re willing to pay. Creatives then view the information and decide whether they’d like to participate. CrowdSpring says:

Watch the world participate
Once posted, Creatives from all around the world will work on your project and you’ll begin to receive actual work - not proposals or bids - to review.
Choose the one you like
As the entries come in, you’ll be able to review, sort, rate, give feedback and collaborate with Creatives until you find ‘the one”.
1. Create your profile
We built a little section of the site just for you where you can tell the world about your skills and upload your portfolio for all to see.
2. Participate to projects
With new projects posted every day, you can reach customers all over the world and build your business. And, since it’s a truly level playing field, you won’t be judged by how fancy your offices are - it’s all about your work.
3. Earn money
We manage the entire billing and payment process for you and there’s never a cost - you keep 100% of the money you earn.

Guru’s Take on CrowdSpring. $$ Here’s the glitch. If you don’t get enough participation, odds dive on finding what need. And because CrowdSpring (reluctantly) lets you off the hook if you don’t get 25 entries, what happens is that Creatives post teensy variations just to push the number up and still, it’s close but no cigar. Apparently I was the first user to ask for my money back. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I posted a project now — a couple of months deeper into their beta — I would probably get a better response. I like this site. I like its founders, who appear to be authentically good guys looking to give Creatives a hand.

Next there’s Genius Rocket: Launch Your Creativity. GeniusRocket was founded by a couple of luminaries from the online world plus political stand-out Joe Trippi. I remember Mark Walsh from back in the day when I was one of the first members of AOL’s infamous Greenhouse Incubator — he always had a knack for ‘getting’ the consumer.

Here’s what they have to say: “The team that harnessed the power of the Internet to change politics forever in presidential campaigns, as leaders of the 2004 Howard Dean campaign, has joined with Internet industry pioneers to create GeniusRocket, an online platform that links the talent of its creative community with companies to solve real world advertising and marketing challenges.” The site lists a variety of current assignments, most paying an average of $2500. Unlike Bootb, GeniusRocket (so far) appears to be American through and through.

Guru’s Takeon GeniusRocket. $$ GeniusRocket is also heavily into cute-land, with its RFB (Request for Brilliance) and a bunch of other attempts at adorable. But it also has the uber-accessible look and feel AOL was once known for plus savvy use of the basic principles of Consumer Generated Content, which quite frankly, these particular Internet pioneers helped develop. While the GeniusRocket quite clearly has not yet hit the stratosphere, it has potential.

This blog has gotten way too long. Even my eyes are tired. Stay tuned for Part 2: Getty Images, Kluster/NameThis, Veaux and more.