Emerging Trend: Consumer is Boss

Crowdsourcing is an emerging trend that is giving decision-making power to a niche group of consumers; these crowds are organizing, managing, powering, and innovating brands across the globe. Some popular examples are: (1) BeerBankroll, (2) Catwalk Genius, (3) A Swarm of Angels, and (4) Sellaband.

With BeerBankroll, members (minimum of 50,000) contribute USD 50 in exchange for voting rights on ideas such as the company name, logo, product design, product mix, marketing plan, advertising, and sponsorship. All profits are split three ways: as redeemable points back to the investor, to charity, and back to BeerBankroll.

Catwalk Genius is an Irish Adopt-a-Designer initiative. For EUR 15, crowds help designers raise EUR 70,000 to create a new collection within 6 months. In the meantime,
supporters receive a limited edition piece created exclusively for them by the designer.

A Swarm of Angels is a groundbreaking project driven to create a GBP 1 million film and give it away to over 1 million people using the Internet and a global community of vested members.

Finally, Sellaband seeks to raise USD 50,000 to help independent artists create and distribute their music. Consumers have the ability to buy a “part” of the artist for USD 10, and share in the future profits. Consumers are incentivized to advertise through word of mouth and virally (MySpace, etc).