Just Off The Press: Our #CSReport2015 Trend Report

eYeka April Wallpaper

I am happy to share the “The State of Crowdsourcing in 2015” trend report (“How the world’s biggest brands and companies are opening up to consumer creativity“) with you, which we wrote in collaborative spirit with François Pétavy (CEO of eYeka) and Joël Céré (Insights & Innovation Solutions Director at eYeka). For the first time since the beginning of the crowdsourcing phenomenon, besides a sporadic blog post in late 2013, this report takes a (big) step back to look at the evolution of crowdsourcing since the mid-2000s, providing important insights about how it is used for marketing and innovation across the globe. Continue reading →

Did You Notice The Cyclists in Air France #FranceIsInTheAir Spot?

Image via AirFrance.fr

It’s been 2 weeks since Air France’s latest spot, France Is In The Air, is running internationally. The 45-second advertisement is part of the brand’s new global campaign, which started on April 2nd with print, radio and web ads in 12 countries (including Brazil, China, the USA, Russia, Senegal or Switzerland). What I like about it is that it has an Evian Babies feel to it: a stylish and simplified background, people swinging (instead of swimming) through the screen in a gracious manner, a focus on music rather than words. A very nice creative, mixing retro and glamor, like the print ads. But have you noticed the cyclists?

“There’s nothing that looks more like a plane than another plane,” Tiphaine du Plessis, associate director at BETC, the agency behind the campaign, told l’ADN. The strength of the company lies in “its roots, the French state of mind: when you put one foot in an Air France plane, you are already somewhat in France,” she says. The campaign plays on the globally recognized “positive values” like its traditions, history, gastronomy, architecture or music.

Continue reading →

How Doritos Is Using Its New Community For Marketing #CSreport2015

Image via Linkedin.com (click to access article)

Image via Linkedin.com (click to access article)

After writing quite a bit about Doritos’ crowdsourcing activity of the last decade, which all started with the famous “Crash The Super Bowl” video contest, let’s have a look at the “next step” that PepsiCo’s brand seems to take. The company has indeed started a platform called Doritos Legion Of The Bold, which is  based on Flockstar, a crowdsourcing technology operated by Texas-based agency The Marketing Arm. Blogger Dan Lamoureux said about it: “It sounds like [Doritos] is so crazy for crowdsourced content that they’re going to start running lots of smaller contests all year long.  That’s an interesting bit of news in and of itself.”

And indeed they are because, as I write this, Doritos has launched a dozen of marketing competitions already on this platform. It is mainly about marketing activation and consumer engagement, but tomorrow they might start running HQ-video projects or innovation contests. So, will they kill “Crash The Super Bowl” eventually? Is this a logical next step for the brand to drive consumer engagement? Here is what Doritos has used this platform for, and some thoughts about where this might lead to in the future. Long story short: I think it’s a very smart move, let’s see where it’s heading.

Continue reading →

My Favorties Of December: Countries As Brands, Sorbonne From The Inside & Choices Across Cultures

Image via @HistoricalPics (click to see tweet)To wrap up 2014 nicely, here is a selection of links (articles, reports, interviews, photos…) that I liked and tweeted in December. Articles about crowdsourcing, content marketing, entrepreneurship and open creativity populate this wrap-up, I hope you will like them.

For me, 2015 will mark a pivot year as I will start as a full-time Marketing Manager at eYeka, shifting the focus away from research and towards driving business results for the world’s leading creative crowdsourcing platform. I just found this part of my job to keep me going more than only doing teaching and research (note that I will finish my thesis, continue working on currently ongoing research projects and start teaching marketing at ESSCA Business School, so I’m not totally changing focus).

Happy 2015 to you all! Continue reading →

Here’s What A French CMO Thinks About Creative Crowdsourcing

Click on the image to see the contest results on eYeka

Click on the image to see the contest results on eYeka

Earlier this year, Aviva launched a contest, asking the eYeka community to share their ideas about what “useful” means to them when it comes to insurance (disclaimer: I work at eYeka as a Marketing Manager). “Tell us what your needs are […] and help Aviva become the most useful insurance company ever!” the brief asked. Aviva received about 50 ideas from over 20 countries, which the company praised as being “interesting and rich entries,” and rewarded 3 ideas from Singapore, Mexico and Argentina. What did the person behind the project think about creative crowdsourcing? Here’s a translation of what Françoise Lamotte, Aviva France’s former CMO, shared about the crowdsourcing experience on her blog.

The original article, called “Le crowdsourcing à l’assaut de la forteresse des créatifs?” (“Is crowdsourcing taking the creative fortress by storm?“) was published here; this is a translation of it (emphases and links added by myself). You can find the contest results and the brand’s feedback to the community on the contest announcement page too. Continue reading →

Watch These 10 Awesome Brand Videos Taking Place In Paris

Image via Flickr

Image via Flickr

I love living in Paris, it is such a beautiful and vibrant city. In this post, I simply would like to share a couple of (crowdsourced) brand videos that star the city of light. My work at eYeka (Paris) allows me to see so many creative videos, both on eYeka and on other crowdsourcing platforms, that I just have to spread some of them, and why not take the place I live in as a common thread for all of them? Watch these videos submitted to various crowdsourcing competitions for brands like Microsoft, Lux, Lacoste, Puma and others… and come over visit this beautiful part of the world one day! Continue reading →