13 April, 2015

Coca-Cola Is The Biggest User Of Crowdsourcing, Says New Study

By Emma Mackenzie

Some of the world’s biggest brands are turning more and more to crowdsourcing, with Coca-Cola utilising crowdsourcing the most, suggests a new report.

Created by crowdsourcing company, eYeka, the report called ‘The State of Crowdsourcing in 2015’ looks at the Best Global Brands (as sourced from brand management company Interbrand) to see which brands are really sticking their fingers into this market.

From its inception in 2006, the report found that only 15% of brands have not utilised some form of crowdsourcing for its marketing tactics. Meaning 85% of brands have at least dabbled in it.

Technology brands used to be the highest users of crowdsourcing, but in 2014 FMCG brands scooted past to take the top spot.

And of those in the FMCG category, beverage brands were the top contenders, with Coca-Cola taking first place and its long-time competitor Pepsi coming second.

Coca-Cola had used crowdsourcing 34 times over the past decade. Pepsi has used it 30 times.

Graph sourced from the eYeka report.

In terms of the type of content brands used for crowdsourcing, contests seemed to be a massive driver, with video contests topping the charts. Out of all of the brands’ crowdsourcing marketing moves, 45% came from video contests, such as Doritos’ annual competition for ad space in the Super Bowl.

Brands launching idea contests on the search for new and innovative ways to do things took up a 23% share. Music contests were the least utilised contests, with only a 1% share.

However while video is huge, the report suggests brands are starting to move more towards sourcing ideas, rather than just pure content.

This was particularly noticeable between 2013 and 2014. In 2013 ‘ideas’ only took up 11% of crowdsourcing tactics, with ‘content’ at 89%. In 2014 however ‘ideas’ was at 27% and ‘content’ at 73%.

According to the report: “This indicates that FMCG companies may be moving away from crowdsourcing as a sole way to produce content faster and cheaper, towards using it as a way to get creativity directly from consumers as various stages of the marketing process.”

Jeremiah Owyang, founder of collaboration company Crowd Companies, said this report is a way to further understand what’s going on with creative crowdsourcing. “It shows how brands have used it in the past, who are the major players in the field and where we are heading. Will the crowd allow resilient brands to turbo-charge their innovation efforts? Only the future will tell us, but I know for certain that we must collaborate with our customers to succeed.”

Francois Petavy, CEO of eYeka, added: “More brands are embracing crowdsourcing every day, and the way they do so is evolving very fast.”

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