Unilever Offers Cash For Consumer Feedback
Unilever is set to launch an online collaborative community to encourage women to contribute ideas for new products. The approach includes offering a cash incentive for consumer feedback. Read about the interesting social approach of Unilever…
Mindbubble targets women aged 25-50 and gives them cash rewards for their contribution. The site enables users that will be asked to give their opinions on products and marketing campaigns through focus groups and polls. In social media marketing we might call it: creating an online “brand ambassador” community.
Unilever hopes the project will result in greater engagement with its range of brands, which include Surf, Dove and Persil. The FMCG giant will involve consumers in forums, blogs, diaries and polls as part of the project, which is consistent with a policy of using digital engagement to increase brand affinity.
Unilever has increased its digital spend in the US from 2% to 3% of its marketing budget to around 15% and intends to make similar changes in the UK.
Babs Rangaiah, Unilever’s global communications planning director said: “The company plans to shift marketing focus away from interruption towards engagement.”
Babs Rangaiah further explained: “We are all about the masses and scale, and interruption is becoming a much tougher proposition. So we have this term: ‘penetrate the culture’. It’s about getting into what people are interested in, what they are engaged in.”
How do we feel about the Unilever approach within the social universe? Mostly two thumbs up! Why? Because we like Unilever’s DNA. It’s open, willing to try and listen.
It at least seems that Unilever brand marketers are capturing the “true power” of social media. And that they dare to go beyond running just interruptive banners at social networks or pushing an intrusive pre-roll commercial before UGC video content. No, Unilever understands it must go beyond “plain advertising” to become successful within in the social space.
I sincerely hope that other brands and their media agencies are paying attention to this social media marketing approach.
For the brand marketers that have doubts, look at the dramatic shift in marketing reality and do believe us: the only constant is change the coming 10 years!
Also see our previous items about Unilever: Dove Onslaught, Unilever Lux and Unilever The Rising Star in Social Media.
Other brands that use social media marketing to gain consumer feedback and new ideas are Dell and Starbucks. Again companies that are unleashing the power of social marketing to transform their brand and business.
Source: Revolution Magazine
Share your opinion and leave your comment below. Subscribe to our rss feed, connect to Twitter, get and spread our Viral Friday widget or sign up for our monthly e-mail newsletter.
Related Posts
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Very strong article Igor, “from interruption towards engagement”, or “from push to pull” as I mention to my clients. It could be the title of every social media program.
Marketers must understand that they must change their mindset when working on their social strategies… Bombing social sites with display advertising, producing non-compelling content is simply not engaging your audience within social media.
It’s all about understanding your customers needs, listening to their feedback, involve them into your social projects and with that, engage them.
@Laurens
Yes it even goes deeper than social marketing. Deeper into the DNA of a brand:
Are brands able to do it the Obama way: listen to a target audience and do things with the feedback?
I think many brands are not ready and don’t need social media marketing but a severe course of change management..
Social marketing says a lot about a companies’ mentality and DNA. Same for many agencies.
It’s easy to say or write down: “from interruption towards engagement”, but in practice a difficult process for brands.
I think many brands will fail here…
Wrinkled or wonderful? http://tinyurl.com/rdl5o6 New approach from Unilever that offers cash for consumer feedback. I like!
Unilever to pay people for feedback http://bit.ly/J0PcT – I’m not convinced it’s a good thing, what says you?
Hmmm I’m not convinced this is such a good thing.
Yes, it’s great they realise the potential of social media and are looking to get more involvement from their customers. But bribing them hardly seems the ’social ‘way to me.
When you pay people for this the incentive is the money, not to help out or improve products. And feeling the need to pay people to interact with you shows a serious lack of confidence in their ability to engage their consumers.
Dell don’t pay people to provide feedback. And neither do Google and Starbucks….
Unilever Offers Cash For Consumer Feedback – http://tinyurl.com/rdl5o6
Unilever Offers Women Cash For Feedback – http://tinyurl.com/rdl5o6
Unilever Offers Women Cash For Feedback – http://tinyurl.com/rdl5o6
@ Daan
Think they are not paying for interaction, but rewarding consumers for good ideas. It seems like a fair trade?
I think there’s a big difference between bribes and incentives/rewards/points/cash
Don’t forget: Dell and Starbucks were basically forced into their programs: Dell was not doing very well in APAC and Starbucks needed to gather consumer complaints.
They both acted very smart, but needed to refresh their brands fast..
Cheers
Hi,
I don’t believ Unilever is bribibng, but Daan has a good point in genera.Many brands intend to bribe their audience, by offering huge incentives.
Brands have to realize that building relationships with their audience within social is pretty much the same as building relationships in real life.
You don’t bring a Ferrari as a gift on a first date, perhaps some flowers…at least I do
@ Laurens
In general I agree with you guys, just didn’t want to glue general on this Unilever approach
I think there is a gap between bribing and rewarding, and maybe sometimes it’s closer.
Well I don’t know how you look, but some do bring a Ferrari to “just” get that first date
Cheers
@Igor, most girls buy me flowers on a first date
I had to check the date on the article.
Not really sure ‘cash for comment’ is revolutionary or necessarily converting consumers to brand advocates.
Do nike, apple, red bull, burger king pay consumers to gain insights?
@Ross
Not revolutionary if you ask me. And I’m not sure either.
We would like to show how the large trend setting brands (the ones you mentioned) and other giant brands do it.
Let’s see if this approach works.
In the old days, when I was a brand manager at a consumer brands, we chose to have a digital idea box like Starbucks. We said thank you for your ideas and feedback and next improved the brand with the feedback. We did not offer incentives or cash.
I hope this is a clear answer?
Cheers
Igor