Unilever goes Crowd Sourcing for their new TV & Ad Campaign

I have been a staunch supporter of Crowd sourcing ever since I hopped on to twitter. The ability to utilize the brains of a group of people collectively for a solution is indeed powerful. In my previous discussion on Crowdsourcing providing the winning edge , the discussions hinted that crowd sourcing works for e-businesses, Web 2.0 and non-profit organizations. My conversations at other platforms concerning crowd sourcing resulted in pretty much the same conclusion making me ponder,

Would Multi-National Companies risk crowd sourcing even when they have fat pockets?

There were some valid enough reasons to suggest that big corporations may not risk their brand identity and value proposition by resorting to crowd sourcing.

But, when the benefits are humongous and the price of getting the job done strikingly low, I say why not?

Unilever is offering $10,000 (£6,087) in a competition to find ideas for its next TV campaign for snack food brand Peperami, using its quirky Animal character, as it decides to drop its ad agency of 16 years-LOWE and turning to crowd sourcing for creative ideas.

"We believe Peperami is a brand that deserves radical creative solutions and are confident taking our brief out to thousands rather than a small team of creative’s will provide us with the best possible idea and take our advertising to the next level," said the Peperami marketing manager, Noam Buchalter. (Source: Gaurdian UK)

The campaign was executed via a famous crowd sourcing provider Idea Bounty and the best ideas will be selected for the print and ad campaign for Peperami’s new snack tentatively titled Peperami Bites.

The complete brief for the Peperami campaign can be read here.

The response to the campaign has been phenomenal and much above the expectations of the company and the organizers. The winners are yet to be declared though.

The move from one of the best advertising agency – LOWE to Crowd Sourcing for a meager $10k. A drop in the ocean for Unilever and I wouldn’t be surprised if the results are even more effective.

Clearly, Crowd Sourcing is arriving big time even at the corporate stage. The benefits are far more than just reduced cost and more creativity.

Crowd Sourcing builds the much needed buzz around the product at virtually no cost

The campaign has received a lot of press coverage, their facebook fan page is buzzing with the quirky animal mascot character which is creating the kind of excitement needed for a new snack brand.

What say? Even the big corporate are not shying away to crowd source their operations and not just any operations, it is the Brand Building exercise in the case of Unilever.

[This post has been written by our regular contributor Ankit Agarwal, an ERP Consultant by profession, a wannabe entrepreneur and stock market stalker by passion]