Airlines and Crowdsourcing

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Jeffrey Tobias in crowdsourcing, Innovation, Open Innovation

According to IdeaConnection, Crowdsourcing with customers is not only smart PR, but it can also save a company large sums of money as it doesn’t have to engage employees in endless rounds of meetings to come up with ideas and initiatives; the crowd can do it for them and it can also select the best ones.

This is something that airlines have been aware of for some time as they have tapped into the crowd to come up with a range of in-flight accessories such as designing eye masks, loyalty cards, and even in-flight snacks. They are using social media and their own websites to co-create their brands with consumers.

Early adopters of crowdsourcing included KLM and Virgin Atlantic and they were followed by Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand, and Emirates amongst others.

In 2010 Emirates launched the first edition of its ‘Our Future Artists’ competition where it asked artists all over the world to submit artwork ideas for the 2011 membership cards of its frequent flyer program called ‘Skywards’.

The program has three levels and submissions had to reflect and interpret the appropriate mood for each level. So the Gold tier had to be ‘luxurious, elite and precious’; ‘sophistication, intelligence and richness’ was required for the Silver tier, and ‘bold, visionary and modern’ for the Blue level.

Participants were encouraged to use any style and medium of art including paintings, photography and sculptures.

The response to this crowdsourcing contest was stunning with more than 3,500 entries and over 50,000 votes. Submissions were judged by a panel of four industry experts who created a shortlist of four entries for each membership level. The final decisive votes went to Skywards members.