Crowdsourcing case studies

Ben & Jerry's
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.

Dunknin Dounuts
 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. 

Vitaminwater
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: