PARIS – The world’s biggest brands have increased their use of crowdsourcing to source campaign ideas and content, helping drive the practice mainstream, according to creative community eYeka.
‘Key findings in The State of Crowdsourcing’ report, due out early next year, were:
• The Top 3 advertisers, all in consumer goods, that invested the most in crowdsourcing were Procter & Gamble followed by Unilever and Nestlé.
• PepsiCo increased its use of crowdsourcing by 325% in 2014, while Reckitt-Benckiser (whose brands include Dettol, Nurofen and Clearasil among others) increased its use by 200 percent.
In analyzing crowdsourcing projects by the world’s top 100 global brands – based on Interbrand’s Best Global Brands ranking over the last two years – the report shows that brands across all sectors are now realizing its potential and investing in its use. While technology brands dominated in use of crowdsourcing in 2013, Ford was the brand that launched the most crowdsourcing projects (11) this year. while in 2013 it was Samsung with nine.
The top three sectors investing in crowdsourcing in 2014 were Automotive, followed by Alcohol and Grocery (excluding alcohol).
In the report, eYeka examines how creative crowdsourcing has evolved, and how brands and companies are using it more and more to inspire marketing initiatives and product innovation.
The report will look at the projects run by 10 major FMCG giants on the four largest crowdsourcing platforms, and is set to reveal that FMCG brands increased investment by 46 percent on crowdsourcing in 2014 compared to 2013.
“Major FMCG advertisers are investing more and more in crowdsourcing as they try to stand out from the competition. Over the last few years advertising has been playing it too safe and as a result, some brands are now indistinguishable from one another, relying on the same old predictable formula. In the last year, we’ve seen FMCG companies trying to break this mold by tapping into the creativity of the crowd,” said François Pétavy, CEO of eYeka.
“No one is individually smarter than everyone is collectively. Crowdsourcing has become part of standard marketing processes for major brands as they have seen the results of their early initiatives paying off. Marketers are increasingly bypassing major agency groups to work directly with creative talents, start-ups and more innovative solutions providers to get fresher perspectives on a brief and the ability to execute it faster and more cost-effectively,” concluded Pétavy.
