What do you get when you cross Canadians with potato chips and add money? Lay’s is banking on it creating the next great chip flavour.
The Lay’s® Canada Do Us A Flavour™ Contest premise is that consumers submit a new flavour of potato chip with up to 3 ingredients, what inspired the combination and the name of their inspired flavour.
Four finalist flavours will be made available for purchase in mid-summer. Canadians will then turn to the task of voting for the winning chip creation. The grand prize winner wins $50,000 and a 1% share of future sales. Not bad for a day’s (minutes?) work.
The simplicity of the contest is that it uses crowdsourcing and well known social media outlet, Facebook to gather ideas. Michael Marchionda, Marketing Manager at Prescient Digital Media, believes you can use crowdsourcing to gather the best ideas from online communities and use them in ways that benefit both the organization and contributor. He goes on to say that viral activity created by the organization’s online community doesn’t just translate into a few Retweet or Likes, but into measurable growth for the business. This is what Lay’s will be measuring.
Lay’s has capitalized on the popularity of Facebook by going where their customers are and building relationships throughout 2013 with two part contest interaction; the ideas generating portion, followed by the voting segment. This gives ample opportunity to interact with customers and potential customers for growth.
Why not submit your own entry? Get your taste buds ignited- your flavour could be the next big thing!
Lessons for Others:
Crowdsourcing is here to stay and will continue to prove successful to both large and small businesses. Any size company can run effective campaigns if they consider the following:
- More ideas can be collected in a relatively short time frame. Development costs are therefore lowered.
- Simple works. Focus on one avenue, i.e. Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
- Keep engaged with followers and work to develop product adoption early. Consumers will buzz about a product before it’s in stores.
Web References:
Crowdsourcing Spreading like Wildfire with Social Media
Lay’s® Canada Do Us A Flavour™ Contest
Secrets To Getting Engaged–With Your Customers
Submitted by: Jennifer Reed – SMBP Student University of Waterloo
To contact the author of this entry please email jenandgeoff@hotmail.com
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.