ASIA-PACIFIC – FEBRUARY 2, 2011 – Lowe Philippines has unveiled Crowdder, the first in the industry to combine real-time insighting and social gaming into a single system for market research. The online subscription-based service allows brands to ask thought leaders questions and get immediate responses, with the option to send and receive questions via SMS.
Noel Perlas, senior digital producer, demonstrated the capabilities of the system to the media yesterday at a press conference at the Mandarin Oriental in Makati City.
Lowe Philippines President Mariles Gustilo said that Crowdder is a product of cross-disciplinary collaboration among the agency’s Creative, Planning and Digital teams. “We have had to change to include among our offerings the capability to develop applications that provide real value to our clients and our consumers," said Gustilo. Crowdder was fully developed in-house at Lowe Philippines over eight months.
The launch version has an initial set of 50 thought leaders from the youth aged 18 to 20 from different parts of the country, pre-screened through a proprietary Lowe Counsel process and chosen for their Klout rating, which validates their influence online.
Unlike other web-based consumer insighting services, Crowdder has a social gaming component where participants can customize their avatars and interact with other thought leaders. Responses earn points for badges and virtual goods. Brands also have the option to offer real-world rewards. The thought leaders expressed that they would rather not be paid. Leigh Reyes, Lowe Philippines ECD, said that this was not unusual for this generation of ‘Millennials’: "For them it’s worth more than money to be able to talk to marketers directly."
Compared to traditional FGDs that are time-consuming and expensive to mount, Crowdder provides a faster, more cost-effective option. Lowe can tailor-fit respondent sets according to client requirements. A quarterly trends newsletter will also be offered to top-tier annual subscribers. Although the agency declined to name brands, it said that clients have expressed interest in Crowdder.
There is still work to be done. "We’re very to used to delivering creativity as a finished product—it’s a TV commercial, it’s a billboard, it’s a radio ad. It is finished, it is done…. That doesn’t happen anymore today," said Reyes. "Every service is perpetually in beta. It is never done." The agency assures that Crowdder has a feedback and quality control system, and that the service will continue to be refined over time.
This innovation marks another brave step for Lowe Philippines after its recent rebranding. Reyes believes that the excitement is not their alone. "Crowdder is 100% locally imagined, created, developed and will be a source of pride for us, not just as an agency but as an industry."
Follow Crowdder on Twitter: @crowdder.
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