Oct

A health brand marketer creating new value through social media

Crowdsourcing is consumer research on steroids for health brands.

The health brand Vitaminwater, through its vitaminwater flavorcreator Facebook page, is inviting friends and fans to pick a name, write the package blurb and design the label for a new product release.

They’re also awarding $5,000 to the creator of the winning package design. In fact, today is the announcement of the winning flavor and vitamin package, that will then mark the start of the label design content.

What are six lessons that health brand marketers can take away from this combined social media/crowdsourcing effort:

1. Opening your brand up to customer participation allows you to create win-wins for your customers and your company. Customers get a product (or service, or enhancement) of their own creation, and your company gets a pre-approved stamp of approval.

2. Follow the “conversational” practices of your customers . Vitaminwater’s fans are heavy users of social media, particularly Facebook. With 963,000+ of them, participation in, and word-of-mouth about this contest will be strong. Where do your fans tend to congregate?

3. Brand actions speak louder than words. Vitaminwater could simply have introduced a new flavor through a traditional new product process. Instead, they let their fans develop the idea, creating much richer interaction with the brand through an engaging experience.

4. Crowdsourcing is consumer research on steroids. Rather than trying to understand what your customers want through traditional research, your customers are bringing their tastes and preferences to bear by actually creating more relevant brands.

5. Ideas not used today, can be stored for the future. If your brand, and your crowdsourcing idea, is big enough to motivate participation, the hundreds or thousands of ideas that you capture today can be stored away for future consideration.

6. We live in a new world of open innovation and collaborative production. Isn’t it better that you leverage the knowledge, creativity and passion of your crowd to your advantage rather than your competitors reaping the rewards?

How can you put the strength of the masses to work for you? How can you harness the insight and passion of your customers to create new and greater value for themselves and your company?

Oct

How a health brand gives customers exactly what they want, one breakfast at a time

Mymuesli provides an example of breaking free from competition by challenging prevailing industry assumptions. They didn’t require any special vision or foresight about the future. They simply looked at customers from a new perspective — that of the customer.

The ready-to-eat breakfast company was started in Germany in 2007 with a simple and unique idea. They let customers make their own customized muesli, which is then delivered by the company to your home or office. Customers can choose from 70 ingredients, and to quote the company “566 quadrillion different muesli variations.”

What’s the difference between Mymuesli and other companies? Most businesses are focused on market segmentation, to differentiate customers and deliver what they want. But mymuesli sought out the commonalities and desires of “muesli-loving” customers, thereby creating a platform for mass appeal and mass customization. And with 566 quadrillion different muesli variations, there’s more than enough combinations to delight mymuesli customers for years to come.

What’s your variation on my muesli? What are you doing to give your health brand customers exactly what they want (by looking at their world through their eyes)? Here are what a few health brands are doing:

Hellohealth – a healthcare startup trying to create a better (simpler) healthcare experience for both patients and doctors.

YouBar – an LA-based company that lets you create nutrition bars tailored to your own tastes and dietary dreams.

Google Health – which allows users to build their own personal health record.

Sep

Creating new health brand marketing opportunities by seeing what others don't

In the midst of a normal day of emails, phone calls, meetings, reports, and water cooler, Twitter and Facebook conversations, there’s not much time left for seeing things differently.

But the most successful companies do just that. They see what others don’t. They see a bigger picture, and thereby are able to think and do different things. They challenge conventions, connect the unconnected, see more opportunities to exploit, more ways to be different and more sources of future profit.

Here’s a chart we call our playbook for seeing what others don’t. We created it to help us deliver more innovative ideas to our clients. Everyone in our company has it taped on their walls, and some even have them in handy travel (business card) size.

Use this chart to help you see what others don’t. But please note that these are simply starting points for changing how you see your world differently. For each of these “transformational vision” sparks, there are supportive tools and inspiration sources for creating new and greater value.

Sep

Best Buy – an example of how health brands can engage customers and employees through social media

Best Buy is leveraging the power of social media by reaching out to both customers and employees to co-create greater and new value for themselves and the organization.

They’re asking customers to help change the company. Through their bestbuyideax.com site, customers are asked to share ideas, vote for the ones they like and discuss them with the rest of the community.

They’re also asking employees to contribute their “unedited” perspectives through Connected – a new way for people to engage with the actual folks who power Best Buy. Kudos to the company for having the courage and confidence to publish these unedited comments.

What can health companies learn from Best Buy’s social media practices:

• customers are eager to share their opinions, you just need to ask and give them a forum to do so
• these crowdsourcing opinions represent a great pipeline to innovative new products, services and experiences
• business success starts with happy, energized and engaged employees, who believe they are important to the success of their organization (asking them to contribute their “unedited” stories certainly supports this)
• for leadership to encourage employees to share their views for all to see, means more enthusiasm, commitment and passion to contribute to the greater good (and increased profits)
• continuing to drive one-way conversations puts your relevancy at risk, as your competitors are actively and openly engaging their customers and employees in a continuous cycle of co-creating greater and new value

Hellohealth, Humana (through crumpleitup) and Vitaminwater (through its Facebook flavorcreator) are a few companies openly engaging audiences to co-create greater and new value. What others can you think of?