A brief note about Frito Lays’ participatory flavor contest: The curiosity about bizarre flavors like Chicken and Waffles is enough to substantially surge profits in a short-term (w/in about a year). Good if your company:
1) has standard reliable service record and customer base
2) has good customer engagement
3) might need time to figure out bigger strategic goals in the future
I also noted that a package designer must have granted their inner geography wonk a moment to put the origins of various flavor suggestions on the back of the package.
They’ve got something remarkable going on: participation. I’ll be keeping an eye on their contest (and reading their press release about it)–I bet it’ll have some useful implications for citizen and educational initiatives as well.
[Yes, I recently encountered a bag-the buyer said it was terrible but he was curious enough to get some. I agreed with him after trying to finish the rest his bag–the salty/sweet balance wouldn’t be an issue had the flavor not tasted like budget deep-fry breading scraped off a buffet tray. I’ll add it to the list of things to attempt when you’re still young, but nevermore unless dire circumstance arise!]
Light Telecommunication 