Reading about the prosumer made me think about experiences I have had with prosumerism. One that really came to mind was the Dewmocracy revolution. I have had two different internships with Pepsi Cola in the United States, and I dealt a lot with the Dewmocracy plan.
Dewmocracy is a revolution to the Mountain Dew brand in the US. I know it's not happening down here in Chile. Actually, does Mountain Dew even exist down here in Chile? If not, I'll explain really quickly. Mountain is a citrus flavored carbonated soft drink that is very high in caffeine and is very successful in the United States. Anyways, because of its popularity, there have been many attempts to make different "flavors" of Mountain Dew to expand and capitalize on that brand. Almost all of those attempts have failed. So starting last year a huge new iniative called Dewmocracy was put into place. It was a forum where the consumers got to help decide new flavors. Basically it started as a website where fans of MD suggested different flavors, the names for the flavors, and the designs of the bottles. The MD brand team narrowed the suggestions down to a few finalists and then everybody got to vote on the final three. Once those final three were decided, they were introduced into the market as LTOs (or limited time offers). The 3 flavors, MD Supernova, MD Voltage, and MD Revolution are currently for sale all over America for people to try, but only one is going to become a permanent expansion of the MD brand--the other two will go away. After the three month trial period, there is going to be a vote (it is actually happening in 19 days--there's a countdown on the website). This way the consumers will once again get to decide which new MD flavor stays. Talk about prosumerism in action!
This is all so interesting to me, because not only does this ensure the success of the product--since the one that stays is the flavor that is most popular--but it also gets MD consumers a lot more involved in the product. It has been really exciting being on the company side of this project because the response it has garnered has been phenomenal! Customers are getting more excited about all things Mountain Dew! It's a win-win situation! It's amazing what can be accomplished when the end-users have a say in their products! YaY for prosumerism! :D
2 comentarios:
Don´t worry about the English, it´s my practice of the week. Mountain Dew is a great drink, so you gain my full attention with your post hehe.
Great example of collaboration, you can see that every day more and more brands and products are falling into the arms of collaboration and prosumerism (my new word)
Greets
IDS
wow - I just realized I misspelled "write" in my first paragraph. And English is my first language. That's really sad. oh well, everybody makes mistakes! haha! :D
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