A Competition for Creators -- Featuring a Shower
1.) The brand community that I’m choosing that is crowdsourced by a company is shower products. These brands – Dove, VO5, Tresemmé, etc. – are discussed through community affiliation. One website, CloroxConnects, let consumers give their ideas of cleaning showers via “my Tilex® idea,” a forum within their website. Another website, Unilever, lets an online community submit ideas for a competition – this will be talked about later. Most of these consumers will have the same ideas on how to improve a shower, and how to keep it cleaner.
Community scripts are also formed through the consumers giving out ideas, seeing that they have a deep connection in trying to let others know about their cleanliness routine, or even an inkling of their idea.
Existing community roles are mostly played by consumers within the forum by everyone being a “learner” and a “mentor.” Consumers are giving out their ideas, while at the same time, learning from others.
2.) While looking to find a blog that discusses my brand, I found one blog post that caught my attention. Coming from tutuor2u.net, a blogger by the name of “Ben10” posted back in November of 2012 that Tango – a Britvic-owned fizzy drink – was going to extend the brand into a shower gel, being targeted at supermarkets. Tango hoped in appealing to the audience that they already had through their drink to try this new product. However, this product most likely bombed, seeing as where the blogger got his information – via marketingmagazine.co.uk – has not had that many hits as it would have probably liked.
A better example of a blog discussing my brand would have to go to slate.com and their blog, the XXfactor – What Women Really Think. Back on January 21st, 2014, author Jessica Grose blogged about how Dove introduced a short film called Selfie, explaining that taking non-serious photographs of your face can be a positive thing for teenage girls who are struggling with their body image. As of today, the video has been shared on Facebook over 4,700 times, and has been Tweeted 225 times – the view count on YouTube extends close to 888,000.
In terms of community strategy, Dove did an outstanding job. They knew what their target audience would be – teenage girls, who more than likely all deal with the struggle of trying to get the perfect body. They knew how to relate to them – “selfies” is a concept that has been picking up throughout the last few years, and has become a worldwide trend. It successfully has reached out to many consumers who purchase Dove, and they’ve more than likely shared it amongst their friends, so on and so forth.
In terms of community reaction with the Dove commercial, it received mixed reviews; some were praising, while others were criticizing. In terms of crowdsourcing through this particular blog…well, you got me there. The blog is targeted towards women, so where do the men fit in? Obviously, it’d be a bit tougher trying to get their attention for a specific product.
3.) The one specific crowdsourcing product that Unilever did was back on August 14th, 2013, when they partnered up with eYeka to promote a challenge of finding the “shower of the future.” According to Unilever’s press release on their website dated the exact time of the contest being started, over 250,000 creators – all a part of eYeka’s online community – would have the chance to develop ideas for a number of familiar Unilever brands. The ideas had to follow a few criteria, such as the need to be cost efficient and affordable to the end user, having an innovative design but that fits within a typical modern bathroom, and should use no more than ten litres of water per use. The contest ended on September 8th, 2013, with the results being produced in October. The winner – receiving 5,000 euros and a trip to London to give the idea – was awarded to a creator in France; his entry entitled “Waterfall Shower.”
The form of crowdsourcing that was being used for this competition was, simply, holding a contest and rewarding the Top Five performers. The challenge / problem that were being sought out were finding an environmentally friendly shower idea to incorporate and hopefully try to sell out.
The measures used by the company that went into evaluating the effectiveness of the project was basing it off of the creator’s functions (what someone using the shower expects in terms of sensations or tools) and design, exterior and interior. The most innovative entries and the best looking ideas will be favored for their ideas going beyond the idea of sustainability to propose real sensorial improvements via touch, temperature, etc.
(The following data for measures – the content’s “brief,” to be more precise – can be found here: https://en.eyeka.com/contests/7676-recycling-shower/brief)
4.) The main goal(s) of the crowdsourcing project that was identified above was both solution generation (collected ideas from creators) and solution evaluation (evaluating their work). The approach that the company used to accomplish these goals was outreach – they (Unilever) reached out to a community (eYeka), partnered up with them, and then successfully held a competition. The approach that the company should have used was, in my opinion, additive aggregation. Try to get an average of who used what for their ideas. Only five winners were selected out of 102 participants; it would be fair for all involved to have at least an opportunity for something within their creation be noticed by the eventual consumers.
