粉丝的力量：5个品牌的创意海选故事

    菲多利（Frito-Lay）在打造土豆片的最新口味时，智囊团把这项工作交给了最具创造力和最为重要的美食评论家们，也就是该公司的顾客。这家公司发起了一个活动——“请帮我们一个忙”（Do us a Flavor）。作为活动的一部分，菲多利食品爱好者们提出了380万个有关薯片口味的想法（下文将进一步介绍胜出者的有关情况）。这种众包技巧对于母公司百事可乐（PepsiCo）来说并不新鲜。百事的众包历史可以追溯到2007年，当时它的“激浪民主”（DEWmocracy）活动催生了激浪（Mountain Dew）的最新口味Voltage。菲多利首席营销官安•穆克吉说：“它真正开创了我称之为消费者参与和消费者掌控的新潮流。” 2007年以来，百事可乐旗下的所有品牌总共从消费者那里得到了2,000多万个涉及产品口味的建议。

    和百事可乐（财富500强企业）一样，很多著名品牌更加愿意把重要决定交到粉丝们的手中。这不是巧合。社交媒体数据分析公司Mass Relevance的CEO山姆•德克尔说，这股潮流在很大程度上来源于社交媒体整合的崛起。这家公司把社交媒体体验融入客户网站，通过突显网站上的内容来帮助耐克（Nike）、美国全国广播公司（NBC）和NBA等品牌与用户进行沟通。众多的粉丝们都愿意、也渴望在社交媒体上分享他们的想法，因此企业开始更加仔细地倾听他们的声音就不足为奇了。“观众就在那里。他们已经习惯了参与和创造内容，”德克尔说。“借助社交网站可以得到这样的好处：把他们的参与扩大到他们在社交网站上的粉丝，从而吸引到更多的人。”

    从土豆片口味到NBA球服，下面是近期几个非常引人瞩目的众包和粉丝投票活动。

1. 百事可乐

    这家饮料和零食生产商是众包领域的先驱，旗下的很多品牌都借助顾客的创造力来开发新口味。百事可乐最近为菲多利开展了名为“帮我们一个忙”的活动，收到了近400万个涉及薯片最新口味的建议。包括铁人厨师迈克尔•西蒙和女演员兼餐厅老板伊娃•朗格利亚等名人在内的一个食品专家组从中选出3条建议，然后由粉丝们投票决定优胜者。这3条建议包括鸡肉华夫饼和拉差辣椒酱，但起司蒜蓉面包占据头名（其他值得注意的建议是玛格丽塔和韩国烧烤）。

    穆克吉说，起司蒜蓉面包将在2013年底正式加入菲多利的产品阵营，但第二三名因为备受青睐也将进行小批量生产。投票总数超过了100万张。她说：“（活动期间）我们为这个品牌创造了空前的舆论价值。”

    When it came time to create the newest flavor of Frito-Lay potato chips, the brand's brain trust turned things over to its most creative and important food critics: its customers. As part of the brand's "Do us a Flavor" contest, Frito-Lay lovers sent in 3.8 million chip flavor ideas (more on the winner to come). This crowdsourcing technique is nothing new to parent company PepsiCo. Its history with crowdsourcing dates back to 2007 when its "DEWmocracy" promotion generated the newest Mountain Dew flavor: Voltage. "It really started what I'll call a wave of consumer engagement and consumer control," says Frito-Lay chief marketing officer Ann Mukherjee. Since 2007, PepsiCo has received more than 20 million flavor suggestions from customers across all brands.

    Like PepsiCo (PEP, Fortune 500), many prominent brands are a lot more willing to place important decisions in the hands of their fans. And it's no coincidence. Much of the movement stems from the rise of social media integration, says Sam Decker, CEO of Mass Relevance, which builds social media experiences into client websites, helping brands -- including Nike, NBC, and the National Basketball Association -- engage users by highlighting content on their sites. And with so many fans eager and willing to share their thoughts over social media, it's no surprise that companies are beginning to listen more closely. "The audience is there. They're used to participating and creating content," says Decker. "By doing it through a social network, you get the benefit of amplifying their participation out to their followers and then pulling in more people."

1. PepsiCo

    The beverage and snack maker has been a crowdsourcing pioneer, utilizing the creativity of customers to come up with new flavors across a number of its brands. Pepsico's most recent "Do us a Flavor" campaign for Frito-Lay, garnered nearly four million submissions for its newest flavor of potato chips. A panel of food experts, including celebrities like Iron Chef Michael Simon and actress and restaurateur Eva Longoria, helped narrow submissions down to the final three, and a fan vote determined the winner. Finalists included Chicken and Waffles and Sriracha, but Cheesy Garlic Bread took the top spot. (Other notable submissions were Margarita and Korean BBQ.)

    Cheesy Garlic Bread will become a Frito-Lay regular later in 2013, but the top two runners-up will also be brought back for a limited run due to popularity, says Mukherjee. In total, more than one million votes were cast. "What we got in total talk value for the brand [during the campaign]," she says, "was unprecedented."