In August, InBev's Brazilian beer brand Brahma unveiled a series of three bottle designs that it claimed were 'based on the soul' of the drink and reflected its favela-chic branding.
Design agency Boxer had tweaked the final bottle-wraps, but the creators were neither Brazilian nor even established professionals. In fact, they were three artistically inclined Brahma drinkers who had won an online competition. This raises the question as to what designers did before they had consumers to help them out.
When a concept such as user-generated packaging design takes hold, it is clear that the business of branding has moved into unusual and interesting areas. But it is an emerging trend that a growing number of brands are tapping into. Not only does it stimulate consumer interest in a product, but it can also create an emotional link that is hard to achieve through traditional marketing channels.
Recently, brands including Pepsi, Smarties and McDonald's have raided the creative imagination of their consumers and incorporated the best of what they have found into their official identities (see Walkers and Beck's case studies).
Brahma senior marketing manager Nicola Trainor says user-generated design encourages consumers to get under the skin of a brand, while giving the brand licence to make an emotional connection with its customers. In 2006, McDonald's launched its 'Global Casting' initiative by calling for stories and photos embodying the spirit of its 'I'm lovin' it' advertising strapline. Twenty-five of the submissions continue to appear on the burger chain's packaging.
Pepsi, meanwhile, ran a competition in the US last year to find a fresh design for its cans as part of a campaign to boost its appeal among young people.
Elsewhere, Nestle Canada released a 50g Smarties box last year that was wiped clean of all but the basic logo and an invitation to go online to create a pack design. The competition ran for five months, with the 10 winning designs appearing on packs this summer.
Genuine engagement
On the basis that no one understands consumers better than they do themselves, the concept of user-generated design is logical. How should a brand portray itself for maximum consumer impact? Ask the consumer. Better yet, let the consumer portray the brand. What's more, the practice is so in tune with the modern themes of engagement and two-way consumer relationships that its doubters risk appearing anachronistic.
Certainly, the VistoBrahma activity ('SeeBrahma' in English) appears to have enhanced the brand's appeal among creative individuals, at the very least. The competition attracted 300 entries, with the winners' designs featuring on more than 1.3m on-trade bottles and 800,000 packs. They, and those designs that won a separate 'people's vote', were also included in a touring exhibition.
'Any brand's objective is to strike an emotional chord with the consumer, and there is no better way of doing that than to get them involved with the design and positioning of the brand,' says Boxer business director Giles Poyner. He adds that the tactic is appropriate because, although the beer has a 120-year heritage in its native country, where it is popular, it styles itself in the UK as a hip alternative to mainstream brands.
Encouraging consumers to design or choose crucial elements of the brand experience could easily be written off as a gimmick or a tactical credibility-grab, but that would be to disregard the recent proliferation of similar and related activity.
北京赛车pk10s by Mars-owned sweet brand Revels (it ran 'Eviction' ads this summer, which asked the public to vote for the variety they wanted to see banished from the pack), Walkers Crisps (its ongoing 'Do us a flavour' competition) and Doritos (the recently concluded 'You make it, we play it' ad), while not technically relating to design, all employ a consumer-flattering angle.
Landor Associates senior director of strategy James Withey says such campaigns are part of a more general trend that ultimately promises to revolutionise the way brands and customers interact. 'Digital media and the democratisation of design and publishing are putting more power in the hands of consumers,' he explains. 'Brands have a simple choice - they can be much more open to consumers navigating their offer in their own way, building their own interfaces with brands, or they can ossify by following a "brand talks, consumer listens" model. And that is a model that is starting to look very old-fashioned.'
The social aspect
The inspiration for this kind of engagement clearly comes from the social networking realm, where engaging in a dialogue and offering feedback is intrinsic to web 2.0's phenomenal appeal. The emergence of consumer fan groups and online forums has opened up a new route for brands to achieve direct feedback from target consumers.
'There is this huge element of society for whom social networking, open communication and user-generated content are the norm,' says Julie Hanson, managing director of Brahm Branding and Design. 'For those people, this organic, engaging process is a part of everyday life, so if a brand can capture user-generated content in a way that genuinely engages the audience and is true to the brand, then yes, it is a worthwhile exercise.'
The notion of inviting amateurs to contribute material that will have a bearing on a product's brand is one that does not sit well with everyone. In addition, brands must be careful how they use this opportunity, as consumers are savvy enough to know when they are being asked to offer their opinion in a corporate environment.
When Nestle embarked on its Smarties packaging competition last year, Dean McNeill, national president of Canada's Society of Graphic Designers, aired the view that the campaign was an insult to professional designers. 'Their suggestion that an online tool allows the user to become a designer suggests that all we really need to do is to give everybody in the world a copy of InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator and they are designers,' McNeill told Design Edge Canada magazine. 'Or perhaps if we were to just give everyone a chequebook, they could become marketers.'
In practice, user-generated design initiatives create the effect of a consumer takeover while actually being heavily mediated by the brand and overseen by its designers. For that reason, any concerns that amateur design might either put professionals out of work or lead to some kind of branding anarchy can probably be set to one side.
'I don't think (the idea of user-generated design) diminishes our craft,' says Howard Milton, chairman of design consultancy Smith & Milton. 'It is actually nice to see packaging that isn't designed by professional pack-designers. If a brand has to change, that is quite a nice way to do it, as long as it is relevant to the brand and it doesn't change every five minutes.'
To imagine consumers collectively becoming an important source of design inspiration for the brands they favour is ultimately to miss the point. The essence of these initiatives is the energy and the sense of collaboration they generate between the brand and the consumer, and the same effect can be found in any number of ways.
'The brands that allow people to talk to each other - that is the exciting part,' says Hanson. 'On the Nike site you can design your own trainers and have dialogue with the brand. Mountain Dew gives loyal customers influence and control over product flavours, colours and names. People network and talk openly, and only genuine engagement will survive.'
Based on the success of consumer-generated design initiatives over the past 12 months, we can expect to see more of the same in 2009.
In a year that is expected to be one of the toughest in recent memory for marketers and agencies alike, brands will be looking to build trust and lock in emotional attachments. What better way to achieve that than by inviting consumers to have a moment in the sun with their favourite brand.
WALKERS: THE RIGHT FLAVOUR
Walkers' 'Do us a flavour' campaign brought together the unlikely partnership of TV presenter Gary Lineker and celebrated chef Heston Blumenthal.
Backed by a 拢10m investment, the on-pack and online promotion invited consumers to submit their flavour ideas, along with a picture of what inspired them.
The public will get to vote for their favourite, with the winner receiving 拢50,000 plus 1% of all future sales (the competition is now closed to entries, with the finalists due to be announced in January).
Walkers says the campaign is the company's biggest to date, and managing director Richard Evans identifies user engagement as its specific aim. The initiative is not quite user-generated design, but the principles of consumer involvement are very much the same.
BECK'S: PATRON OF THE ARTS
Beck's has a reputation for supporting art projects. Over the years, it has commissioned collector's-edition bottles from artists including Damien Hirst, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Tracey Emin.
This year, Beck's broadened its scope, inviting students and alumni of London's Royal College of Art (RCA) to submit ideas for its bottle labelling. In August, it changed those labels for the first time in its 56-year UK history, assigning images contributed by four recent RCA graduates.
The Beck's label competition is claimed by the company to be the biggest public art commission ever awarded, with the winning design being displayed on 27m bottles of beer.