Vitaminwater Puts Users at the Flavor Controls
A new campaign from Coca-Cola’s energy brand Vitaminwater is crowdsourcing its next flavor rollout and offering a $5,000 prize.
Facebook members can download a shareable application that lets them vote for their choice among a handful of flavor proposals, specify the nutrient requirements they’d like in the new product, and give the new item its name, label and ad copy.
The development process begins with consumers downloading the application and voting for their favorites among a group of flavor proposals. The list of those proposals will be devised by the Vitaminwater folks after listening in to online conversations in places such as Google News, Twitter, Flickr and the foodie blog. The more a flavor is discussed in those communities, the more likely it is to make the list of the top 10 contenders that Web users will get to vote on. The list is scheduled to be thrown open for voting in the next two weeks.
Besides choosing the winning flavor, FlavorCreator app users will also be able to take a quiz that assesses their fitness levels. Those results will be used to help determine what vitamins and minerals the new drink should deliver and what health benefits it can convey.
Finally, a design contest launching from the Facebook app in October will ask app users to come up with a name, label design and package copy for the new flavor. The winning label will be selected in December by Vitaminwater celebrity spokespeople Carrie Underwood and rapper 50 Cent, and the entrant who supplied them will win $5,000.
The new Vitaminwater product is expected to be on store shelves by March 2010.
Vitaminwater, acquired when Coca-cola bought parent Glaceau in 2007, ran an extensive TV campaign during the March madness basketball finals to promote its Facebook page. Launched in February of this year, the page now has more than 400,000 fans.
Coca-cola is currently the subject of a class-action lawsuit by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which alleges that Vitaminwater’s product health claims are unsubstantiated.
