• International Herald Tribune, Monday, March 19, 2007 11:30 AM

A 6-year-old company called crmmetrix -- with 45 employees spread among offices in New York, Paris, Singapore and Mumba -- is engaging customers in a system it calls Dephi to combine their creativity with marketing department knowledge. Then it tests both with instant feedback from the Internet.

Clients range from consumer products companies like Unilever to Accor Hotels and the tire company Michelin. The system uses an Internet-based panel of consumers -- provided by the client or crmmetrix. The first 100 are asked for their best idea for a slogan to sell a particular product. Those consumer ideas are mixed in with the marketing department ideas and put to a vote by the next level of panelists.

The method provides a unique form of feedback, says Olivier Toubia, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia University Business School in New York. "The beauty of this system is that consumers both generate ideas and sort through them," Toubia says.

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