Any campaign allowing entrepreneurs to connect with potential buyers is a crowdsourcing campaign. Many examples exist of such campaigns that made startups grow big and famous among people all around the world. Startups like McDonald’s, Amazon, Starbucks became successful in quite a short time. If you are looking to start your own business, crowdsourcing campaigns can help you get unique connections and people who provide funding for new startup companies. Crowdsourcing can make any startup spread like wildfire. In this article, I will tell you about some of the most successful crowdsourcing campaigns that produced the best results for their respective startups.
Top 10 Most Successful Crowdsourcing Campaigns
1. My Burger
A burger selling startup, McDonald’s started its crowdsourcing, My Burger, in Germany. The company urged people of all ages to invent and share their burgers on the internet. Millions of people showed interest in this campaign, which made McDonald’s a hot topic very soon. After the campaign ended, the top five winners were awarded their own burgers. McDonald’s also released burgers of these winners at its first sale.
2. Do Us A Flavor
Lay’s, one of the largest potato chips manufacturers, started the ‘Do Us A Flavor’ campaign in 2012. Customers were asked to generate new flavor ideas and share them on the internet. Many people voted and shared their flavor ideas. The top three winners were awarded a cash prize. Their flavors were Chicken and Waffles, Sriracha, and Cheesy Garlic Bread.
3. White Cup
A coffee firm from America, Starbucks, started a crowdsourcing campaign called the ‘White Cup’. In this campaign, the company asked people to design their Starbucks cup. An image of the cup was to be shared on all social media platforms with a hashtag ‘WhiteCupContest’. After the campaign ended successfully, the company launched a limited edition of the reusable cup with the winning design printed on it.
4. Lego Toy Selling Company
Lego, a toy manufacturing company, encouraged people to create and share their toy designs online. Millions of people engaged with the campaign by giving their votes. Lego offered a share from net revenue to the originator of winning design. In this crowdsourcing, the world saw unique design ideas coming from every corner of the world.
5. Amazon Studio
Today, Amazon is the biggest player in the ecommerce industry without a single doubt. In 2010, Amazon started a crowdsourcing campaign, Amazon Studio, in which people were encouraged to write and share scripts. After taking feedback from important clients, the crowdsourcing campaign ended successfully. The clients voted for the ‘pilot’ season, which was released then after a few days.
6. Save The Arctic
It was a very unique crowdsourcing campaign. An oil-drilling firm, Shell, wanted to take benefits from the Arctic’s melting snow. With the ‘Save The Arctic’ campaign, the people of the Arctic asked the whole world to support them in preventing habitat loss. Thousands of sarcastic quotes were posted against the oil-drilling company. The Save the Arctic campaign really showed people’s concern towards the environment.
7. Airbnb Shorts
Airbnb launched its ‘Airbnb Shorts’ campaign to reach people having unusual travel experiences. The company offered a platform to let people know the best places to visit. In this campaign, people were allowed to share a 15+ seconds video about their hometown’s passion. Thus, Airbnb opened a way to let people go through an image gallery before visiting their favorite place.
8. Waze
It is a navigation app which is crowdsourced and powered by one of the largest online communities. Waze allowed people to report accidents, traffic jams, traffic conditions, check-ins, pave ways, and driving speed. To track the driving speed, the platform has to take permission from the driver. Waze helped everyone to get the best possible route in real-time.
9. Samsung’s SSIC
Samsung, in partnership with Marblr, launched one of the biggest crowdsourcing campaigns, SSIC. The platform was dedicated to getting the best ideas while creating and launching a new product. In SSIC, Samsung asked people for their feedback and opinions to help it further improve its performance. You will easily find most tech enthusiasts here.
10. Sustainable Living Plan
In 2010, Unilever started a crowdsourcing campaign called ‘Sustainable Living Plan’. The objective of this platform was to encourage people to live a healthy life. The campaign also focused on sustainability challenges that can emerge from time to time. Millions of people supported this crowdsourcing campaign.
Conclusion
Until now, you have seen the top ten most successful crowdsourcing campaigns. The campaigns listed here were more about opinions and encouragement rather than supporting a startup investment platform. You can still obtain funding support as well as new ideas through these crowdsourcing campaigns. In countries like India, you can effortlessly get started with crowdsourcing for startups. As a new founder, you should use crowdsourcing to get the best results. It will allow you to get new ideas, support, and opinions from people on a global scale.
