iThnk.com

iSnack2.0 & Co-creation = Fail!

So what did they do & what should they have done?

Some time ago I wrote a post about Threadless.com and the way they use co-creation to create an amazing self promoting community.

Clearly co-created T-shirt designs are not the same as a competition to name a spread. The “Name Me” promotion was never going to be a cyclical decision process.

But if we contrast start of the process for what KRAFT have done with Threadless.com do we can see that there the two red circles (community voting & popular designs are made) are the key differences.

The clear difference is that the decision behind naming KRAFT’s new spread was made by exec whereas with Threadless.com the community is involved in the final decision on which T’s are made.

To KRAFT’s credit they listened to the community backlash for iSnack2.0 and did involve the community in a vote for a new name. The options were between these six: Cheesybite, Creamymate, Smooth, Snackmate, Vegemate and Vegemild.

The result from the vote was “Cheesybite”. This article explains the whole story quite well.

So is “Cheesybite” any better?

While it’s an remarkable improvement on iSnack2.0, I can’t help but think that by limiting the options to the six above KRAFT have still inhibited the true power of community interaction. While I understand there is an element of risk mitigation in only offering six names to vote on, I feel that they may have let the fear of “loosing control” get in the way of the true power of co-creation. What do you think?