MEDIAPOST — Contests in which consumers help design or contribute to special product labeling -- closely tied in with digital/social media and larger marketing missions, of course -- seem to be popping up with increasing frequency among food manufacturers these days. Two recent examples include Chiquita Brands International and Knorr, Unilever's largest brand...

FORRESTER RESEARCH — Co-creation and crowdsourcing are hot because companies see these social technologies as a tool to engage with consumers in new and innovative ways and at the same time benefit from their involvement in the design and development of products. In a recently published report, "US Consumers Are Willing Co-Creators," Forrester Technographics data shows that 61% of all US online adults are willing co-creators, and they are open to co-creating across a large range of industries. But interest isn’t equally high across different consumer industries. Below, you’ll find a graphic showing the top five industries that consumers are interested in participating with for co-creation efforts...

MARKETING EXPERIMENTS BLOG — We’ve written some posts recently about how the customer should be in charge of your marketing (and really perhaps everything you do as a company). And hopefully along the way we’ve provided some helpful advice on how to listen to your customers and provide them real value (which will ultimately lead to greater success for your company). But...there’s a line. et’s just say, "the customer is often right." To help you find that line, let’s take a MarketingExperiments look at..."When not to listen to your customers"...

FORRESTER RESEARCH — In a prior post, I told you that 83% of companies use social media, but fewer than half of those have product teams that are currently using social media to influence product design, creation, or strategy. In that report, I also divulge that 72% of consumer product strategy (CPS) professionals claim that social media will enhance their existing capabilities of using customer input to shape product strategy. I've also posted about how social co-creation is an important opportunity for consumer product strategy (CPS) professionals -- and it's something that some, but not all, of those companies who are active with social media use. For those CPS pros who are not actively engaging in social co-creation, a common question is, "Do consumers want to co-create? And will they want to co-create with me?"...

THE GUARDIAN — Unilever says its first attempt at a crowdsourced TV commercial, for its Peperami brand, has saved it money and left it critical of the ad industry's reluctance to try new ways of working. Last year Matt Burgess, who runs Unilever's "local jewel" brands including Pot Noodle, Marmite, Bovril and Slimfast, fired ad agency Lowe, which had created Peperami's quirky Animal character and worked on the account since 1993. Next Monday Unilever will air the fruits of a bold strategy that saw almost 1,200 entries submitted in a crowdsourcing competition. The ad, which Burgess said cost 60% to 70% less than using a traditional ad agency, will air during Coronation Street and Big Brother...