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Power to the People: 3 Tasty Crowdsourcing Case Studies

For food and drink brands, crowdsourcing new products and flavors makes perfect sense. Not only does it increase engagement, it gives the people that consume the products a say in their development. That interaction makes them more likely to shell out cash when the item hits shop shelves.

Thanks to social media, it’s become easier to to ask your customers to contribute to product development or collaborate on other creative endeavors. Not only is it doable, it’s been done, and with great success, by major brands.

“This trend is a direct reflection of the new meritocracy caused by the rise of the social web. Now everyone had the same power to not only consume but also produce things,” said John Winsor, founder of Victors & Spoils, and the author of Baked In and other books about co-creation. “Brands can use the power of their digitally connected consumers to co-create new products or face the wrath of those same consumers as they go into competition with them.”

We spoke to three major brands — Ben & Jerry’s, Coca Cola’s vitaminwater and Dunkin’ Donuts — to find out more about their recent crowdsourcing campaigns. If you are interested in the new people power that connected consumers wield, then read on for some delicious insight into how each campaign went down.

1. Ben & Jerry’s “Do the World a Flavor”

Ben & Jerry’s is no stranger to fan feedback; some of its best-selling flavors were born from customer suggestions, but in 2010 it took the concept a step further with the “Do the World a Flavor” competition.

Fans were able to invent their own variety of the popular ice cream via a fun online “Creation Station.” Finalists won a trip to the Dominican Republic to see a sustainable fair trade cocoa farm and the winning flavor was produced as an official Ben & Jerry’s product.

The specific aim of the contest was to raise awareness for fair trade ingredients, and with around 10,000 new flavor suggestions from the U.S. alone, Ben & Jerry’s achieved that goal. We asked Sean Greenwood, “grand poobah” of public relations for Ben & Jerry’s about the “Do the World a Flavor” competition:

Why did you opt for crowdsourcing for the campaign?

It’s always a tremendous opportunity for us to tap into our fan’s passion, creativity and their own interpretation of “Peace, Love and Ice Cream.” Our incredible fans come up with some great flavors. Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, Chubby Hubby? Ever hear of those? Yep, all from our fans. The crowdsourcing offers an opportunity for fans to participate and create some fun, and as Jerry says: “If it’s not fun, why do it?”

How was the campaign a success for you?

It was a tremendous global opportunity for us to talk about our belief in the fair trade model. Since then, we’ve been hard at work making our own flavors using still more fair trade goods and communicating Ben & Jerry’s commitment to transition to using all fair trade ingredients, globally, by 2013.

Do you think crowdsourcing will be big in the future as a way for fast moving consumer goods brands to engage their audience?

I think any chance that companies have to connect with their fans in a fun manner is golden. For us, in this program, crowdsourcing was the hot fudge, whipped cream and nuts on top of our sundae!

2. Dunkin’ Donuts’ “Keep It Coolatta 2: Flavor Boogaloo”

Dunkin Donuts has run two very successful “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contests in the past, allowing fans to design their own perfect pastry product. Last summer they tried something a little different.

To promote the “mixology” potential of its Coolatta drinks, Dunkin’ Donuts asked fans to collaborate on a playlist of summery songs that would go well with fan’s favorite Coolatta flavors.

The campaign netted 300,000 new Facebook fans while over 40,000 Pandora users added “The ultimate Coolatta summer music mix!” to their list of stations and spent nearly 14,000 hours listening to the station.

We quizzed Ben Smith, interactive marketing manager for Dunkin’ Donuts, about the “Flavor Boogaloo” project:

Why did you opt for crowdsourcing for the campaign?

Allowing our Facebook fans to help us create an upbeat custom Pandora channel dedicated to playing, “The ultimate Coolatta summer music mix!” was a great opportunity to connect with our fans in a meaningful way while highlighting Coolatta mixology.

We leveraged Pandora as the home to the “The ultimate Coolatta summer music mix!” because of its reach and appeal.

How was the campaign a success for you?

The campaign was designed to raise awareness of Coolatta mixology and encourage Dunkin’ Donuts fans to try our Coolatta products throughout June and July, while also increasing engagement on the Dunkin’ Donuts Facebook page. We found the greatest success engaging with fans through sparking fun discussions of the best songs of summer and Coolatta mixology on Facebook and Twitter. As a result, Dunkin’ Donuts was able to achieve and sustain a high level of engagement throughout the campaign.

Year over year, Dunkin’ Donuts has seen double-digit growth throughout its frozen and iced beverage category.

Do you think crowdsourcing will be big in the future as a way for fast-moving consumer goods brands to engage their audiences?

Before jumping into the conversation on our social media channels, we always listen to what our fans are saying. Social communities are interactive by nature and listening to what our fans want to hear is how we have been able to engage with them in a meaningful way. By listening and participating in an ongoing conversation with our fans and followers, we have developed programs and promotions that are fun and interesting, while also encouraging brand advocacy with our fans’ and followers’ network of friends.

We will continue to provide our fans with a superior social media experience, and if we remain authentic and committed to listening to our followers and engage them as we have, I see our number of followers continuing to increase, especially as we continue our brand’s growth and expansion throughout the country.

3. Vitaminwater’s “Flavor Creator”

Coca-Cola-owned Glaceau brand vitaminwater gave its fans the vote with a “flavor creator lab” on its Facebook page. The goal was to come up with a brand new variety of drink. Fans could vote for their favorite flavor, play games and answer quizzes to help determine which “functional benefit” the beverage should offer and even have their say on the design of the label.

The winning flavor — named “connect” — hit shop shelves in 2010, after 40,000 Facebook users had created unique label designs via the lab. Participants spent an average of approximately seven minutes engaging with the application. Matt Kahn, Senior Vice President of Marketing for vitaminwater, reveals the thinking behind their social strategy:

Why did you opt for crowdsourcing for the campaign?

Vitaminwater has always had a very loyal, interactive fan base and once the brand joined Facebook we heard more regularly from our consumers. At the time, the vitaminwater flavor creator program was a natural next step — it allowed for us to bring more exclusive content and real programming directly to our fans.”

How was the campaign a success for you?

The vitaminwater flavor creator was a three month, three step program that allowed us to have a two way conversation with our consumers. We gave our fans the tools to help develop something they were passionate about — in the end, we heard loud and clear what it was that they wanted when it came to vitaminwater.

Do you think crowdsourcing will be big in the future as a way for fast moving consumer goods brands to engage their audience?

Vitaminwater was among the first companies to use social networking to give fans such level of control over product innovation — a variety of vitaminwater was actually made by our fans, for our fans. Crowdsourcing was a great way for us to tap directly into our consumers — we were able to get them information faster and interact with them directly.

Conclusion

For savvy brands, product development has moved from a sterile lab to the social web and become a fantastic marketing opportunity. If brands want to engage today’s connected consumer, they need to get social and start listening.

“Today there is no choice. It’s either collaborate with your consumers using co-creative and crowdsourcing tools or perish,” Winsor said. “There will be collateral damage for those who don’t want to play.”

Did you take part in any of the campaigns above? Do you see crowdsourcing playing a big part in the future of food and drink product development? Have your say in the comments below.

More Crowdsourcing Resources from Mashable

– 10 Cool Crowdsourced Music Video Projects
– Why Marketers Should Invest in Crowdsourced Research
– 7 Captivating Works of Crowdsourced Art
– HOW TO: Get the Most From Crowdsourced Design Competitions
– 5 Creative Uses for Crowdsourcing

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Synergee

More About: ben & jerrys, coca cola, crowdsourced, crowdsourcing, dunkin donuts, facebook marketing, MARKETING, trending, vitamin water

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