The first high profile examples of crowdsourcing, including Dell Ideastorm and My Starbucks Idea, were primarily focused on “being part of the conversation” and engaging their most passionate and vocal customers in a constructive way, with gathering great ideas to improve the customer experience almost just a fantastic bonus from the deal.
This year we’ve started to see some big-budget experimenting with crowdsourcing as integral to the marketing of the product itself. Here’s three examples:
Mountain Dew Dewmocracy
Mountain Dew’s Dewmocracy has employed a pseudo-MMOG, Forrest Whitaker directed web videos, and multi-stage elimination rounds to involve Dew drinkers in selecting the brand’s next soda flavour.
The end product is a consumer directed creation, from flavours through to name and marketing, albeit within carefully constructed boundaries.
With Dewmocracy, the marketing of the product is the creation of the product.
Walkers Do Us a Flavour
Walkers “Do Us a Flavour” campaign challenges spud fans to invent the next crisp flavour in return for £50k and a share of the profits.
This experiment in mass product concept crowdsourcing and pub-conversation inspiration is the biggest marketing push in the company’s history, with a £10 million pound budget that spans TV, web and retail.
They’ve passed the 800,000 flavour submission mark and are heading swiftly towards a million, making it easily one of the most successful user generated content campaigns of all time.
Best Buy Blue Label
Now Best Buy has launched a new sub-brand, Blue Label, with the tagline “Inspired by you. Powered by Best Buy.”
They’ve worked directly customers in partnership with Toshiba and HP to find out how to create laptops that will better meet their needs. So far they’ve factored in product enhancements like backlit keyboards and service enhancements like better support. And now they looking to involve you in the process, through their Blue Label forum.
It’s interesting to see Best Buy having a go at spinning the results of crowdsourcing as a premium, consumer-facing sub-brand.
“Best Buy Blue Label” sounds high-end (as much as anything with the prefix Best Buy can), and it’s not a coincindence. It echoes Ralph Lauren’s signature Purple Label line, and more directly Johnny Walker Blue Label, the whisky maker’s most expensive blend.
Those comparisons might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s great to see the continuing propagation and evolution of the crowdsourcing and customer co-design memes.
It’s encouraging to see that more and more businesses are looking to the web not just as another broadcast medium, or even as a place to get their messages distributed via consumers in social spaces, but as a place to connect directly with their customers to exchange and create value, and even to connect their customers together.
More on that last bit in a post on branded communities shortly!
Via PSFK.
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co-design, customer experience, differentiation, engagement, marketing, trend, crowdsourcing
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Not as strong of an example of the 3 you have shared, however, I thought this was funny when Taco Bell challenged America to come up with the next “sauce wisdom” for their hot sauce packets. this all went down during the hollywood writers’ strike. a nice gesture to put some money into the pockets, and tacos into mouths of out of work writers. http://www.tacobell.com/saucyscribe/rules.htm With this promotion, the consumer had a chance to see their idea get produced into market.
unlike this half-baked idea here from Pringles chips, where one can only print out their design and share only among their friends. no in-market activation. http://popart.pringles.com/cancreator/home.php
i say go all the way or don’t bother doing it at all, if you’re gonna crowdsource your brand.
Hi Windo,
Agree with your take on the Pringles example — with brands like Jones Soda printing customer photos on bottles over a decade ago, it strikes me as strange to go only half way with this.
Stranger still though, hundreds of people actually took the time to try it. I suppose that shows how much many people are interested to interact with their favourite brands, even when there’s not much of a reward involved. I think that must still be part of the novelty factor of UGC, and at some point there will need to be a more tangible result from our time invested.
Geoff