When it came time to create the newest flavor of Frito-Lay potato chips, the brand's brain trust turned things over to its most creative and important food critics: its customers. As part of the brand's "Do us a Flavor" contest, Frito-Lay lovers sent in 3.8 million chip flavor ideas (more on the winner to come). This crowdsourcing technique is nothing new to parent company PepsiCo. Its history with crowdsourcing dates back to 2007 when its "DEWmocracy" promotion generated the newest Mountain Dew flavor: Voltage. "It really started what I'll call a wave of consumer engagement and consumer control," says Frito-Lay chief marketing officer Ann Mukherjee. Since 2007, PepsiCo has received more than 20 million flavor suggestions from customers across all brands.

    Like PepsiCo (PEP, Fortune 500), many prominent brands are a lot more willing to place important decisions in the hands of their fans. And it's no coincidence. Much of the movement stems from the rise of social media integration, says Sam Decker, CEO of Mass Relevance, which builds social media experiences into client websites, helping brands -- including Nike, NBC, and the National Basketball Association -- engage users by highlighting content on their sites. And with so many fans eager and willing to share their thoughts over social media, it's no surprise that companies are beginning to listen more closely. "The audience is there. They're used to participating and creating content," says Decker. "By doing it through a social network, you get the benefit of amplifying their participation out to their followers and then pulling in more people."

1. PepsiCo

    The beverage and snack maker has been a crowdsourcing pioneer, utilizing the creativity of customers to come up with new flavors across a number of its brands. Pepsico's most recent "Do us a Flavor" campaign for Frito-Lay, garnered nearly four million submissions for its newest flavor of potato chips. A panel of food experts, including celebrities like Iron Chef Michael Simon and actress and restaurateur Eva Longoria, helped narrow submissions down to the final three, and a fan vote determined the winner. Finalists included Chicken and Waffles and Sriracha, but Cheesy Garlic Bread took the top spot. (Other notable submissions were Margarita and Korean BBQ.)

    Cheesy Garlic Bread will become a Frito-Lay regular later in 2013, but the top two runners-up will also be brought back for a limited run due to popularity, says Mukherjee. In total, more than one million votes were cast. "What we got in total talk value for the brand [during the campaign]," she says, "was unprecedented."

    菲多利（Frito-Lay）在打造土豆片的最新口味时，智囊团把这项工作交给了最具创造力和最为重要的美食评论家们，也就是该公司的顾客。这家公司发起了一个活动——“请帮我们一个忙”（Do us a Flavor）。作为活动的一部分，菲多利食品爱好者们提出了380万个有关薯片口味的想法（下文将进一步介绍胜出者的有关情况）。这种众包技巧对于母公司百事可乐（PepsiCo）来说并不新鲜。百事的众包历史可以追溯到2007年，当时它的“激浪民主”（DEWmocracy）活动催生了激浪（Mountain Dew）的最新口味Voltage。菲多利首席营销官安•穆克吉说：“它真正开创了我称之为消费者参与和消费者掌控的新潮流。” 2007年以来，百事可乐旗下的所有品牌总共从消费者那里得到了2,000多万个涉及产品口味的建议。

    和百事可乐（财富500强企业）一样，很多著名品牌更加愿意把重要决定交到粉丝们的手中。这不是巧合。社交媒体数据分析公司Mass Relevance的CEO山姆•德克尔说，这股潮流在很大程度上来源于社交媒体整合的崛起。这家公司把社交媒体体验融入客户网站，通过突显网站上的内容来帮助耐克（Nike）、美国全国广播公司（NBC）和NBA等品牌与用户进行沟通。众多的粉丝们都愿意、也渴望在社交媒体上分享他们的想法，因此企业开始更加仔细地倾听他们的声音就不足为奇了。“观众就在那里。他们已经习惯了参与和创造内容，”德克尔说。“借助社交网站可以得到这样的好处：把他们的参与扩大到他们在社交网站上的粉丝，从而吸引到更多的人。”

    从土豆片口味到NBA球服，下面是近期几个非常引人瞩目的众包和粉丝投票活动。

1. 百事可乐

    这家饮料和零食生产商是众包领域的先驱，旗下的很多品牌都借助顾客的创造力来开发新口味。百事可乐最近为菲多利开展了名为“帮我们一个忙”的活动，收到了近400万个涉及薯片最新口味的建议。包括铁人厨师迈克尔•西蒙和女演员兼餐厅老板伊娃•朗格利亚等名人在内的一个食品专家组从中选出3条建议，然后由粉丝们投票决定优胜者。这3条建议包括鸡肉华夫饼和拉差辣椒酱，但起司蒜蓉面包占据头名（其他值得注意的建议是玛格丽塔和韩国烧烤）。

    穆克吉说，起司蒜蓉面包将在2013年底正式加入菲多利的产品阵营，但第二三名因为备受青睐也将进行小批量生产。投票总数超过了100万张。她说：“（活动期间）我们为这个品牌创造了空前的舆论价值。”

2. College Football Playoff

    College football fans have been clamoring for years about a football playoff system. Not only did they get their wish -- a four-team tournament will decide the national champion each year beginning in 2014 -- they also got a say in the new tournament's logo. "College football is obviously a passion for many, many people," says Bill Hancock, executive director of the College Football Playoff (formerly known as the BCS). "You're obviously not going to have fans deciding what play to run on third and two, but to whatever extent fans can be involved, they need to be."

    The logo (above) was determined by more than 100,000 fan votes over a five-day period, and they were directed to the organization's website via Facebook and Twitter. The logos were created internally, and no outside submissions were accepted to avoid issues involving intellectual property laws, says Hancock.

    The College Football Playoff did run into trouble on day one of the voting when officials running the campaign noticed thousands of votes streaming in from a single IP address. It caused a temporary halt in the contest, and those votes were wiped out, but the trouble won't deter the College Football Playoff from implementing fan votes in the future, says Hancock.

2. 美国大学橄榄球季后赛

    大学橄榄球比赛的球迷们多年来一直在呼吁实行季后赛赛制。他们不仅愿望成真（从2014年开始，包含4支球队的季后赛将决出每年全国冠军的归属），还参与了季后赛标志的制定。“显然，大学橄榄球比赛是很多人的爱好，”大学橄榄球季后赛（曾名为BCS）的执行董事比尔•汉考克说。“我们明显不会让球迷们来决定三垒和二垒的上垒规则，但可以让球迷们参与进来，无论程度如何，他们都需要参与进来。”

    标志（上图）由10万多名球迷在5天内投票选出。他们通过Facebook和Twitter被引导到这个组织的网站上进行投票。汉考克说，候选标志由内部制作，没有接受外部建议，以避免涉及知识产权法的问题。

    大学橄榄球季后赛确实在投票的第一天就遇到了麻烦。当时，投票活动的管理人员发现，有数千张票来自于同一个IP地址。这个插曲导致活动暂停，相关选票也被清除。但汉考克说，这次麻烦不会阻止大学橄榄球季后赛在未来继续开展球迷投票活动。

3. LEGO Cuusoo

    Originally created by a group of LEGO diehards in Japan, LEGO's Cuusoo fan page is now operated by the brand itself. (Cuusoo is a Japanese word that means "to wish something into existence.") The toy-brick maker uses the platform to interact with its users and offers a pipeline to submit original ideas for "the LEGO set of their dreams," says Mark Fothergill, LEGO's head of children's community and moderation.

    Once an idea placed on the community receives 10,000 supporters (the equivalent of "likes" on Facebook), the set is considered by LEGO for actual production. The most recent idea accepted by the Cuusoo team: a LEGO model of the DeLoreanfrom Back to the Future, currently in production. Fans are compensated for their contributions, too, receiving 1% of their suggested product's net sales total.

3. 乐高Cuusoo

    乐高Cuusoo的粉丝页面最初由日本的一群乐高铁杆粉丝创建，现在则由该品牌本身负责运营（Cuusoo是日本语，意思是“希望某样东西变成现实”）。乐高的儿童社区负责人马克•福德基尔说，这家积木玩具制造商利用这个平台与用户进行沟通交流，同时还提供了管道，让粉丝们可以提交自己的原创想法，描绘“他们梦想的乐高玩具”。

    发布在社区里的某个想法一旦拥有了10万个支持者（相当于Facebook上的“赞”），乐高就会考虑把这个想法变成真正的产品。Cuusoo团队最近接受的一个想法是电影《回到未来》（Back to the Future）中那辆DeLorean汽车的乐高模型，目前正在生产中。粉丝们还会因为他们的贡献而得到报答，能够获得他们所建议产品净销售额的1%。

4. NASCAR

    NASCAR's Fan Council isn't for the uninitiated. The online group is vetted to ensure that only racing's faithful take part in the 10,000-member community. The reason? These 10,000 fans have some serious pull with the sport's head honchos. "We bounce a lot of ideas off of them," says Blake Davidson, vice president of licensing and consumer products at NASCAR. "It's something that's been very beneficial to us since we've started it and a way to get immediate feedback from the fans on everything from marketing initiatives to things happening in the [live] competitions, to broadcast."

    In 2009, NASCAR instituted double-file restarts into every race thanks in large part to suggestions and input from its fans, says Davidson. (Previously, when a race was stopped due to an accident or weather, the race resumed with cars lined up in single-file instead of side by side.) NASCAR fans even have a say in the league's Hall of Fame inductees. They accounted for one of the 55 votes eligible to determine the hall's next members, which carries significant weight, according to Davidson.

    Other NASCAR sponsors are also getting in on the crowdsourcing action. Wal-Mart used fan input to decide nearly every aspect of this month's race at Pocono Racetrack in Long Pond, Penn. The fans chose everything from the race name -- Party in the Poconos -- to the kind of concessions that were served --loaded potato skin perogies.

4. 纳斯卡赛车

    纳斯卡赛车的车迷理事会不是为外行准备的。申请加入这个在线团体的人会受到审查，以确保只有忠实的赛车迷才能加入这个成员多达1万人的组织。原因何在？这1万名赛车迷对纳斯卡赛车的头头们有很大影响力。“我们从他们那里得到了很多建议，”纳斯卡赛车的授权许可和消费产品副总裁布莱克•戴维森说。“建立车迷理事会以来，我们受益匪浅。这是我们从车迷那里获得即时反馈的一个途径，涵盖了方方面面的内容，包括推广活动，（现场）比赛中发生的事情，电视广播等等。”

    2009年，纳斯卡赛车规定每场比赛都采取双列重启方式。戴维森说，这在很大程度上归功于车迷们的建议和想法。（之前，比赛在因为事故或天气原因暂停后重新开始时，赛车会排成一列，而不是并排排列）。纳斯卡赛车的车迷们甚至对该赛事的名人堂人选都有发言权。戴维森说，入选名人堂需要获得55票，而车迷们占到其中的一票，可谓举足轻重。

    纳斯卡赛车的其他赞助者也开展了众包活动。沃尔玛（Wal-Mart）本月在宾夕法尼亚州长池波科诺赛道上举行的比赛的几乎方方面面都采纳了车迷的意见。从比赛名称（波科诺的聚会）到赛场食品（土豆皮水饺），方方面面都是由车迷们来决定。

5. Dallas Mavericks

    Mark Cuban is one of the NBA's most colorful owners. His in-game antics right on the sidelines demonstrate his dedication to his Dallas Mavericks as both an owner and a fan. So it made sense for Cuban to turn to other fans to design the team's uniforms for the 2015-2016 season. "What's the best way to come up with creative ideas? You ask for them," he writes on his blog. "So we are going to crowdsource the design and colors of our uniforms."

    Cuban may be unmatched among owners when it comes to connecting with fans (he also has 1.7 million Twitter followers), but he isn't sugarcoating his offer. In his characteristically blunt style, he tells those who suggest ideas that they will automatically forfeit ownership rights. And the submissions that aren't picked? "If we don't use your design, it will still be here on this site for now and ever more for you to glance longingly at," Cuban writes. "If we don't choose any of the designs, including yours, then we don't choose any of the designs. That is life in the big city. Move on."

5. 达拉斯小牛队

    马克•库班是NBA里最有意思的球队老板之一。他在场边的滑稽动作表明，作为球队老板和球迷，他非常热爱自己的达拉斯小牛队。难怪库班会让其他球迷帮忙设计该队的2015-2016赛季队服。“得到创新想法的最佳方法是什么？找他们。”他在自己的博客中写道。“因此，我们将把队服的设计和配色方案众包出去。”

    NBA没有哪位球队老板比库班更懂得怎么与球迷（他还拥有170万Twitter粉丝）互动，不过，他并没有拿好话糊弄人。他用他自己那标志性的直率风格告诉那些提出设计方案的人，他们将自动失去对方案的所有权。没有入选的设计方案怎么办呢？“如果我们没有采用你的设计方案，它将暂时甚至永久地留在这个网站上，好让你可以一直垂涎欲滴地瞻仰它，”库班写道。“如果我们没有选中任何设计方案，包括你的在内，那就表明，我们一个也没看中。大城市的生活就是这样。大家看开点吧。”（财富中文网）

    译者：千牛絮