Crowdsourcing Product Design
Crowdsourcing continues to be used more often by major brands and social media is more often then not the conduit to attract participants. Recent examples of product development have become more prevalent as the “crowd” works their way farther up the decision tree.
Through Facebook, Vitaminwater has been engaging consumers on their next flavor and on October 5, 2009 they launch a “label design” contest with the top prize being $5000.
This is a good idea, nothing new, but executed well if it reaches the people who love the brand and gets them more involved in the products future. Vitaminwater has built in controls to force the audience down certain paths, which is often important to get successful outputs. One area where I think they missed their mark considerably (and one that brands rarely get right) is the under-valuation of the cash prize for the designer. A $5000 prize for someone to design my new bottle, label and copy for a product that will surely deliver millions in revenue seems laughable.
A innovative approach might look to give the designer a miniscule stake in its success (like they offered 50 Cent), or a much bigger cash prize. This would drive considerable word of mouth in the professional creative community and no doubt deliver a higher quality product package for Vitaminwater to chose from. There are not too many great designers I know who would waste their time for the very slim possibility of winning $5000.
Regardless, well executed contests have shown to be a good way to populate brand Facebook pages. Vitaminwater has grown 11% since the launch of this contest and the “Woody” Facebook promotion for TGI Fridays delivered over 900,000 new fans to their page in the month since it launched.
The ability to leverage this program over time will be the testament to its true success. With the latest wall posts on Woody’s page being “Seriously, has anyone got their coupons for free burgers yet”, it becomes clear that the follow through on the promotion will be just as critical as the promotion itself.
