Companies will need to interact with their customers so closely that they actually “co-create” value with them on an individual basis (Prahalad, C; ‘’The New Age’’, 2008). Frito-Lay, the foods division of PepsiCo, is taking the management guru’s advice quite seriously and used a Facebook contest (Do us a Flavor) where participants created their own flavor of potato chips with a chance to win $1,000,000 and have their flavor become reality. After participants submit a flavor idea, it is instantly applied to a Lay’s package with an appropriate image. They have also launched a similar campaign last year which asked consumers to vote for the flavour of their choice between the new launches. When talking about the efficiency criteria you must say that these social programs can be a valuable way to both gather insights from your customers and to market the brand in a playful way. As Frito-Lays showed these programs provided an abundance of new ideas that can lead to more insights in to their customer preferences.

I think Frito-Lay has executed this program well and other companies should pay attention when developing their own initiatives. Next to that, they provided instant feedback social sharing which results in people using the platform even more because people like collecting likes. In Do us a Flavor, participants can find out how many people like their flavor and from where in the country interest is coming. They can also share their flavor ideas with their Facebook friends to increase their “likes.” Which gives the customers even a bigger encouragement to use the platform and create more ideas. A big win-win created by Frito-Lay.

An increasing number of companies are doing precisely that to drive up engagement levels and interactivity with consumers to create a customer co-creation. Talking about consumer value creation Frito-Lay has done a great job. When looking at the joint-profitability criteria (CDCC, 2017) they used their consumers to create their own products. Lays profits by producing new type of chips that you know for sure your customers like and on the other hand the consumers benefit by have chips with their own flavor and participate in a social platform with the possibility to receive a large amount of money.