brand-e

By Simon Fuller. Crowdsourcing community Threadless has been churning out some funky Tee shirt designs for a while now, with the site printing the most popular submissions from its collective of artists in Tee form. But recently Threadless traded apparel for microchips, teaming up with computer brand Dell and its Dell Design studio to get creative with laptop lids.
Dell Design Studio already had 200-plus laptop covers to choose from before the Threadless community got involved this summer, adding 11 new lids with the promise of more to come.

Katy Perry has joined forces with Deutsche Telekom in an eight-market campaign to recruit fans to participate in the artist’s official music video for the upcoming release of the single Firework.
Each Telekom country – in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Macedonia and Montenegro – will have a different way of garnering participants, either by asking fans to complete a task, submit a video entry of their singing and dancing talents, or simply by entering a sweepstakes.

Fiat and Vogue Italy have joined forces to get creatives to come up with stylish bikewear for eco-fashionistas. The two brands have asked Shicon to gee up its creative community to develop designs for road-going green headgear, and members have until 23rd August to come up with cool graphics for bicycle helmets.
So, what’s the link between the car marque, the fashion mag and the environment? Easy. Fiat is set to launch the 500 TwinAir, a two-cylinder car which pulls down carbon emissions by up to 30% and lowers fuel consumption.

By Simon Fuller. US-based online design community Threadless has been hailed as an example of just how crowdsourcing can work. So, what’s it all about? Tee shirts, of course.
The idea is that Threadless community of artists dreams up some nifty designs, which are then put to the public vote via the site – the outfit has some one million followers who get to decide just what gets printed. If you’re an artist and your design makes the grade, you get a financial reward – a cool $2,000 – while Threadless goes ahead and runs off the design in Tee form. Artists can earn more dough if their design gets reprinted at a later date.

The UK government’s much-publicised attempt to get the general public involved in running the country via crowdsourcing may have elicited almost 10,000 posts – but no government department is willing to alter policy
after taking a peek at the wisdom of the crowd, according to local reports. The departmental responses were published quietly last week [...]

PepsiCo is asking 20 tech, media and comms start-ups to present to its brand and marketing teams, agency partners and venture capitalists at the inaugural PepisCo10 Summit.
The move is part of the PepsiCo10 incubator programme the beverage giant rolled out in June to find up to 10 entrepreneurial groups and help them activate pilots with PepsiCo brands.

Italian body care brand Paglieri has partnered online creative community Zooppa to crowdsource a 60-second video. Spotmakers need to consider Paglieri’s 130-year history and tradition, its harmony with nature, its passion… and more.

It’s time to tackle the Impossible Brief. It’s from Saatchi & Saatchi Israel, which has turned to crowdsourcing as a means of coming up with innovative solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“For 60 years nobody has cracked it,” says the agency. “It’s been waiting for a great creative mind like yours. Up to the challenge?
“Rather than ‘out of date policies, we need ‘out of the box’ solutions. Let’s show the world that creative minds at their best can inspire even political leaders.”