With the innate social nature of the Web, it’s interesting that no one has pioneered the concept of crowd sourced advertising yet. Every year, marketers and brands spend millions on focus groups trying to figure out what works most effectively to grab consumers’ attention. Unlike a billboard or regular TV commercial, online advertising allows for a two-way direct interchange of information between the consumer and the advertiser, but are we leveraging this channel to its full capacity?

Many print magazines have “Letters” pages, where readers can provide feedback on specific articles. Stories posted online include a “Comments” section for readers to provide their immediate reaction and perspective. Even Facebook gives users the option of letting their friends know what they like with a new thumbs up/down feature.

What if advertisers started asking the same of their audience? Are advertisements all that different from the rest of the content available on the Web?

Today’s digital savvy consumer is no longer interested in the one-way broadcasting model of advertising. It’s time to enter a new stage of advertising where the consumer is engaged in an interactive experience.

The goal of advertising is to cultivate brand awareness and ultimately lead to a purchase. Online, we measure this in terms of clicks, but what if we started to factor in elements such as popularity or positive feedback. Wouldn’t that be more useful than a random click that provides no information about whether the consumer engaged with the advertising content.

The current CPM-based model for ad measurement places value on a click that isn’t necessarily effective. It implies a level of value without any buy-in from the consumer, while making assumptions about its success. Why don’t advertisements or landing pages, ask if the ad was relevant? Or provide an opportunity for the viewers to provide comments or ratings? That way, the click has real value, the consumer feels more involved, and more importantly, they have been engaged.

By integrating a ratings or commenting system, the consumer can provide insight that will ultimately result in advertisements that are relevant to their needs and interests. At the same time, marketers gain first-hand knowledge into what their customers are interested in, while generating awareness for their brand. This type of ratings system works for Amazon’s recommendation system, so why not for advertising? Consumers generally want to see more of what they like.

Digg recently announced a similar concept with Digg Ads, which allows users to digg advertorial content the same way they currently digg editorial content. According to Digg, Intel’s recent “We Are Rock Stars” ad got more than 1,500 Diggs. Under Diggs new model, the more an ad is dugg the higher it’ll be placed in the rankings, mixed in with the editorial content. The more an ad is dugg, the less the advertiser has to pay, putting the onus of original, memorable advertorial content on the advertiser.

Digg is definitely on the right track, but it’s important to integrate this concept into advertisement on third party sites as well. We’ve heard a ton about engagement, customization and overall just giving the consumer more of what they want to increase online ad effectiveness.

Crowdsourcing isn’t a new concept, but with brands constantly seeking more interaction with the consumers, perhaps it’s a simple idea that advertisers should evaluate as the new generation focus group.

RTC enables customers to create personalized campaigns based on viewer interaction and targeting data such as geographic location. The video and audio content are segmented and tagged based on campaign goals and assembled on-the-fly using RTC’s proprietary storyboarding software. RTC’s Personalized Video platform can deliver thousands of different versions of an ad based on a broad number of content variants included in the campaign.

“The campaigns we have executed in the U.K. with Personalized Video technology have typically resulted in double the click-through rates and sales conversions than traditional video campaigns,” said Naj Kidwai, CEO of Real Time Content. “In today’s economic climate, ad agencies are being held more accountable for their advertising initiatives, so measuring the impact of their marketing investment is critical.”