Unilever is asking consumers to create advertising for their sausage-snack brand Peperami. This 'crowdsourcing' experiment is not just one a part of the campaign but is the campaign itself. Lowe, the agency which worked on the brand for 16 years and created the 'Peperami animal' adverts, has been sacked. Consumers are being offered $10,000 for their ideas which are to be submitted at a specially created website, Idea Bounty.

In the past, several brands such as Doritos, Pringles, Walkers crisps, Heinz, Tide 2 Go, Nissan Cube, etc, have asked consumers to create ads, write slogans, suggest brand names and so on. In India too, brands like Bingo have run promotions online urging consumers to create ads. Indica Xeta too created a shoot out which garnered over a 1000 entries. But the Peperami experiment is different.

Unilever plans to fork out all future work on this brand this way, rather than appoint an agency. According to Noam Buchalter, Marketing Manager at Peperami, the trigger was to seek something fresh since it is 'difficult to keep him (Peperami animal) fresh with the limited number of people working on the ads'.

This activity by Unilever does not threaten agencies but surely puts additional pressure on them. Contests are essential to make the consumer feel 'involved'. In Peperami's case, a platform and an idea has already been set by Lowe, which will make it easier for the general public to build upon. The underlying message is that if clients perceive better value outside the agency, the new media options available facilitate that into action.

Source: www.lbhat.com