Vitaminwater via Facebook: What's your flavor?
Brands are coming up with innovative ways to interact with consumers. The beverage brand's latest gambit, the Flavorcreator app, crowdsources for new flavors.
Beverage brand Vitaminwater, known for both tasty thirst quenchers and creative marketing, on Tuesday launched "Flavorcreator" a Facebook application designed to crowdsource ideas for new beverage flavors. The company plans to announce the new flavor in December, with the product slated to hit shelves next March.
In addition to voting on new flavors, Flavorcreator lets users play games and win prizes while providing the company with valuable market research and building brand awareness.
Although I still don't personally enjoy Facebook, I do think that it has potential as a marketing tool. There is clear value in targeting and defining a target audience segment in this way, provided that the application is attractive and well-designed (Flavorcreator is both), presumably leading to higher levels of interest and user interaction.
One important consideration about such an application is what the end goal is. Coca-Cola, the parent company of Vitaminwater, can obviously afford to spend money on advertising and brand building, but most companies need to figure out ways to monetize applications.
It would be interesting to see if people would buy virtual Vitaminwater to send to their Facebook friends or to see what would happen if they offered a coupon to every visitor.
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