marketing technology - one handshake is worth .........: Earn $10,000 for one idea

Some great examples of using the power of the crowd to perform a task that cannot be automated, to harness the creative inclinations many of us have but until now did not have a commercial outlet to monetize these talents and an example how the world of business multinationals are continuing to use these crowds to commercial effect - are these efforts a viable alternative or a PR novelty?

First up - how about $10,000 for your ideas on how to sell a small 'feisty' sausage.

Pepperami sales totals for the UK alone of over £25 million per year and a top 10 ranking in the chilled convience brands for supermarket sales in 2008 demonstrates1 this is no fringe product or brand for Unilever.

marketing technology

For the past 16 years Unilever has used established AD agency Lowe Lintas to provide it with creative ideas for the brand, indeed they (Lowe) came up with the ' Animal ' strapline and character which has been so successful over the years.

marketing technology

Recently though Unilver has followed in Pepsi Co's footsteps (Dorritos competition) to turn to the crowd for ideas for promotion of the brand, however rather than just looking for 'additional' ideas to compliment there advertising agencies efforts, they have dropped Lowe altogether .

Second - MP's expenses, how to sift through over 400,000 pages of expense claims in a timely fashion?

The Guardian newspaper at the beginning of the year did some sterling work in identifying some key ' anomalies ' with some of our less honest UK MP's - finding expense claims for cleaning moats, second homes that were not lived in ( and subsequently sold for huge profits ) and generally being less than honest in claiming for expenses incurred while serving the public. However with the sheer scale of information the Guardian faced an impossible task at fully scrutinising all the information in their possession to bring any further suspicious claims to light - there answer, turn to the community and put online all the information to people to review and submit where they think there may be ' interesting information '

To date over 240,000 documents have been reviewed by over 23,000 volunteers over the past 2 months.

marketing technology

And finally, no in house designers for your t-shirt company? Easy, ask your own customers to send in their design, offer a prize and ask the community to vote on the winner - then sell the winning entry back to those folks who are submitting designs! A great business model from Threadless tees.