I imagine some of my clients could have been in a similar situation to Campbell's: they want a site or mobile app for marketing purposes or whatever. Since it's not crucial for their business, they don't know what they want. Yeah, maybe they have a marketing department, even a digital/social media division. But that can only produce so many ideas, and there's too much internal feedback to guarantee that ideas for, e.g. a mobile app, would be effective or innovative. So maybe they decide to hire a design firm with experience designing innovative mobile apps. In most relationships, the process would only alleviate those problems slightly: they would get more ideas, from outside their own offices, but only a few which the firm considers "best" and they would be subject to the firm's biases anyhow. A 'hackathon' like this is clearly a much cleverer option for a corporation: they get many ideas from diverse sources, they get to choose which ones to prototype—and they get 30 prototypes! And then they pay up. This isn't really about hackathons, it's about efficient economics. "Exploiting" is in the original post's title, but it's really no different from the normal exploitation inherent in every economic interaction.
As a consultant, I am used to a certain level of inefficiency—paying me even as I brainstorm, for example—which hides the exploitation of my labor. I am upset about hackathons like this because they reveal the exploitation and how it is tipped in Campbell's favor.
In a somewhat different vein, being on a college campus, there are similar exploitative relationships, in a sense, at the hackathons I go to. hack@uchicago just had a really awesome hackathon. I was coding, and had an excellent time, but I didn't compete. I know a few other people didn't compete for the prizes either, but were still building cool stuff. We had three main sponsors: UChicago's Physical Science Collegiate Division, UChicago IT Services, and Inventables. All three were engaging in rational economic transactions, beyond charity, much like Campbell's, but nobody's pissed off about it because the economics aren't obvious and the exploitation is many levels of indirection away: nobody directly got a product out of it. The PSCD, however, got some marketing and something to put on their website which will help get them more grants, researchers, whatever. IT Services regularly hires students. I would be willing to bet that the folks from Inventables approached multiple hackathon participants with an eye toward hiring, and I bet the winner straight up got a job offer (which he deserves, for the record, if you're reading this Paul). Meanwhile, I got free food and an excuse to work on a weekend project. I'm not upset because I don't feel exploited by that exchange. I think everybody got what they wanted out of the hackathon.
tl;dr: The economics make perfect sense for Campbell's, not for developers. Chances are any time somebody sponsors a hackathon, it's also an economic exchange, but this one is exploitative (or, if you're a Marxist, this one makes the inherent exploitation of every economic interaction more obvious).
As a consultant, I am used to a certain level of inefficiency—paying me even as I brainstorm, for example—which hides the exploitation of my labor. I am upset about hackathons like this because they reveal the exploitation and how it is tipped in Campbell's favor.
In a somewhat different vein, being on a college campus, there are similar exploitative relationships, in a sense, at the hackathons I go to. hack@uchicago just had a really awesome hackathon. I was coding, and had an excellent time, but I didn't compete. I know a few other people didn't compete for the prizes either, but were still building cool stuff. We had three main sponsors: UChicago's Physical Science Collegiate Division, UChicago IT Services, and Inventables. All three were engaging in rational economic transactions, beyond charity, much like Campbell's, but nobody's pissed off about it because the economics aren't obvious and the exploitation is many levels of indirection away: nobody directly got a product out of it. The PSCD, however, got some marketing and something to put on their website which will help get them more grants, researchers, whatever. IT Services regularly hires students. I would be willing to bet that the folks from Inventables approached multiple hackathon participants with an eye toward hiring, and I bet the winner straight up got a job offer (which he deserves, for the record, if you're reading this Paul). Meanwhile, I got free food and an excuse to work on a weekend project. I'm not upset because I don't feel exploited by that exchange. I think everybody got what they wanted out of the hackathon.
tl;dr: The economics make perfect sense for Campbell's, not for developers. Chances are any time somebody sponsors a hackathon, it's also an economic exchange, but this one is exploitative (or, if you're a Marxist, this one makes the inherent exploitation of every economic interaction more obvious).