I have to admit that I am generally a late adopter of buzz-words (poor form I know for someone who works in an Innovation company). One of the latest buzz words that I’ve encountered late-ly is Open Innovation. Now I’m ahead of the game, welcome to: Dew Mocratic Innovation.
If you read the Wiki link, you’ll see that Open Innovation has its roots in technology. Yet, the concept is fast gaining traction in many FMCG companies from P&G to Kraft. (Skeptics might say that OI is just a formalization of existing practices, namely: for years consumers-with-something-to-say have been sending companies “great ideas for the next best thing”. When I worked on advertising for BMW, we’d get ad ideas sent to the agency every few weeks, not by copyrighters but by owners.)
Mountain Dew, the US soft-drink brand aimed at teenagers, are busy taking the Open Innovation trend into new and exciting places.
Smartly packaged, their latest marketing campaign “Dew Mocracy” sees the company getting their 13-25 year old ‘fans’ to:
1. Invent new products and flavors
2. Come up with a catchy name
3. Create an advert to promote it
4. Vote for the best idea.
The chutzpah/brilliance here is that Mountain Dew has managed to get a whole lot more than just a bunch of cool new flavor ideas.
Essentially, they’ve outsourced their whole R&D and Marketing to a bunch of teenagers, while creating buzz, building brand affiliation and consumer engagement at the same time!
In the name of Democracy (sorry Dew Mocracy) every customer has been given the ultimate chance to make their mark and take control:
YOU come up with the product you’d like to drink, YOU give it a name you’d like to see on the label, YOU create an ad campaign that you think is really cool (we’ll give you the techie resources to make it look good), and then YOU vote for the one you want to see make it to the shops!
For someone new to Open Innovation, I like the way that Mountain Dew have harnessed their customer’s collective intelligence not just to products – where it seems to exist today – but expanded it to also cover marketing, advertising and research (why not?!) in the same campaign.
So, yes, I think the campaign will likely win accolades from peers and award committees for its creativity.
But, I hear some innovation conservatives/skeptics say: Is this really an effective way to do new product innovation? Will the new flavor make it in the market or will this be just another fad or flop? Are the home-made ads watchable or irritating? Will MD fans go out and buy Mountain Dew’s latest consumer-generated product? Dear readers, let’s wait and see. For the time being at least, the Dew-ry is out.
Grant — reminds me of a similar approach used by another beverage company — Molson Canada.
Around 2000, they created the I AM CANADIAN advertising series for Molson Canadian Beer which won notice for a couple of things. It not only skillfully positioned the differences between Canada and the USA but, as the campaign proceeded, they were one of the first to allow its consumers to create their own “rants”. The recent Vancouver winter olympics, I believe, leveraged this under-current as well. By all accounts, they received significant support and interaction. (If you do I AM CANADIAN search you will find some past references)
Chris, thanks for the comment. I checked out the “I am Canadian” campaign - clearly Molson were ahead of their time. Especially like William Shatner’s rant - also rare example of powerpoints being used to great effect.