Many digital marketers are opting not only to listen more attentively to what consumers are saying about their brand, they are also providing opportunities where consumers are rewarded for innovative ideas that promote corporate needs.
This is nothing new – getting shoppers and employees to come up with name, slogans, essays have been popular for a long time. After all, countless minds working on a problem are better than a mere few. Now, with the increase of larger retailers employing social media to market their brands, consumers are challenged to produce ideas, inventions and content, and the stakes are getting ever higher.
User Generated Videos & Web Content
I blogged a while back about Best Buy and their partnership with MoFilm to ask consumers to create their own Best Buy branded “true stories” videos. YouTube has proven that user generated videos can go viral to an extent that corporate made videos cannot. Take for example the Dr. Pepper Tay Zonday Chocolate Cherry Rain video – 7,988,016 (and counting) people have opted into watching this Dr. Pepper “commercial” on YouTube, all their other commercials get a fraction of this traffic. Best Buy and Dr. Pepper are not alone in promoting user generated content. 3M, Doritos and Tourism Queensland have all achieved fairly substantial successes with their own user generated content contests. A recent Forrester report states that companies in the travel, food, entertainment, fashion, and retail verticals gravitate to such campaigns.
User Generated Ideas & Development
Some companies, generally in technology fields, will go so far as to give consumers the opportunity to help innovate products and play a part in developing new technologies. Rogers Mobile is using Facebook to digitally market the Rogers Best App Contest which allows consumers to suggest their ideas for Google Android apps and these can be voted on by other Facebook members. The value of this campaign is in that you must add an app to participate which promotes the brand across the platform. Further, the ideas generated all help in innovating the new Android mobile platform which Rogers is using as proof of the “mobile revolution” and even the ideas that do not win become fair game, and Rogers further obtains figures on how many people would be interested in specific apps and functionalities. Facebook users have the opportunity to win several phones, as well as a grand prize of having their app developed at a $50,000 value.
Give Them a Dream, Invest Them In Your Brand
It’s not just about the opportunity to win a large prize – I have seen contests for the opportunity to win a sticker, but still people will participate. People need dreams and given the opportunity to have a dream not matter how big will move them to unbelievable lengths. Here, consumers that engage in these types of contests they have dreams of renown and respect, and overall satisfaction at having created something that is valued by others. This dream becomes an investment in the brand being promoted, and will promote the contest and the company actively either to secure their winning through votes or just to get local recognition. The word of mouth value here is much more tangible, and this in relation to how large the user investment and how large the prize.
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Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor