• Ad Age, Monday, November 2, 2009 12:15 PM

It would appear to be bad news for firms that conduct agency reviews, and I'm not sure where this budding trend fits in with last week's story about the growing importance of procurement in the selection process, but Natalie Zmuda has a good piece this morning on how "crowd sourcing" is evolving.

Main case in point is that Mtn Dew will hand off marketing duties for a $100 million-plus business, at least temporarily, to whomever the masses determine has submitted the best 12-second clips to www.12seconds.tv outlining their ideas for marketing three new Mtn Dew line extensions. The extensions -- Distortion, Whiteout and Typhoon -- are themselves the product of Dewmocracy, an initiative designed to open up product development to consumers. It launched in 2007 with an online game.

"If we're going to have a dialogue with consumers and have consumers play a role in dictating the future of our brand, they've got to play a role in all aspects of it," says Brett O'Brien, Mtn Dew's director-marketing. At the same time, Mtn Dew says that BBDO Worldwide has been intricately involved with Dewmocracy from the beginning, and the company is adamant that this relationship is solid.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »