JCPenney called upon Passenger to create an online community that would give loyal JCPenney customers the opportunity to provide feedback on Ambrielle® - JCPenney’s line of lingerie for the modern woman. By creating a private online community for Ambrielle customers, JCPenney was able to get valued input from community members on among other things, how to improve upon product sizing and design to better meet customers’ needs.

Following is the joint submission between JCPenney and Passenger for the 2008 Forrester Groundswell Award in the “Embracing” category:

Groundswell Awards
Embracing: Ambrielle Team Impacts Product Design
Submitted by JCPenney and Passenger

JCPenney launched Ambrielle Team, a private online community dedicated to consumers of the JCPenney lingerie line, with the goal of learning more about the Ambrielle customer and her fit concerns. Passenger’s team helped JCPenney gain an initial understanding of her fit and quality issues through a series of online discussions within the community.

After a “wear” test to gain more detailed feedback on specific products, participating members were invited to voice their opinions via a private discussion board, an online activity and live online chats with the product team. Based on this customer collaboration and consumer feedback, JCPenney made several significant product changes to the lingerie bands, straps and overall sizing so that their products better meet customers’ needs. The changes were reported back to the community to show how they embraced their insights and feedback; the Ambrielle products hit stores in July, with much stronger sales.

As a result of the success of this community and the level of engagement Passenger has helped them foster with their customers, JCPenney has now incorporated wear tests into each product launch process and is continually incorporating community feedback into new product development to make changes prior to shipping new products to stores.

Passenger worked with Coca-Cola to inspire loyal customers to extend its popular “My Coke Rewards” program to students and schools in need. Using Passenger’s intuitive platform, Coca-Cola turned to its existing community around a concept called “My Coke Rewards for Schools”, which enabled members to engage in discussions on what school rewards would be most impactful and how the program could thrive.

Following is the joint submission between Coca-Cola and Passenger for the 2008 Forrester Groundswell Award in the “Talking” category:

Passenger and Coca-Cola Create “My Coke Rewards for Schools” Community Working alongside the My Coke Rewards team, Passenger collaborated with parents and members of their private online community to develop the My Coke Rewards for Schools, a new extension of the popular rewards program designed to help students and schools in need. Parents can earn points from participating Coca-Cola packages and donate them to any participating school they choose whereupon administrators can redeem them for needed resources from the schools rewards catalog.

Contributions from the My Coke Rewards Community were instrumental in gaining feedback on the name for the program; understanding what school rewards were most important to parents, and devising ideas to increase participation at launch and on an ongoing basis.

The impact has been twofold. Not only did the My Coke Rewards Team incorporate these insights into the design and execution of an incredibly important educational program, but the ancillary word-of-mouth facets of this project have also encouraged parents, teachers and students to connect with their local communities and make an impact offline.

Passenger, the leader in on-demand Customer Collaboration teamed up with adidas to harness the customers’ voice to inspire innovation and affect change into its nationwide back-to-school marketing campaign, “New School of Thought.” adidas relied upon Passenger’s platform to engage its customers on the merits of this campaign, have a voice into the campaign’s stylistic attributes and provide valuable feedback on how “New School of Thought” should progress.

Following is the joint submission between adidas and Passenger for the 2008 Forrester Groundswell Award in the "Energizing" category:

adidas’ “New School of Thought” Community

adidas, the world’s second largest sporting goods retailer, recently launched a successful campaign entitled “New School of Thought” “ a back-to-school marketing push that gives users access to free music from electro sensation Ultraviolet Sound and a 30% discount on adidas Originals items. This campaign was rolled out to retail stores nationwide and was highly successful in recruiting new consumers and appealing to current adidas loyalists.

Based on its positive reception, the adidas Retail Marketing team called upon Passenger to launch a “New School of Thought” project within its already established private online community to continue the campaign, and extend it beyond just the back-to-school time-frame. Passenger and adidas recruited enthusiasts of the brand to provide insight and valuable feedback on the campaign itself. Using Passenger’s innovative Customer Collaboration platform and community managers, adidas was able to glean valuable feedback on how to proceed with the campaign.

The Passenger-powered community played a large part in helping adidas decide on three crucial elements of the campaign: font treatment, headline and secondary tag lines. Based on some interactive discussions with their customers, adidas decided to keep the “New School of Thought” headline in all graphics since the community felt it added value of consistency. adidas also had the community vote on their top tag lines to identify which were the most impactful and true to the campaign message. The winners were:

1. “Don’t be afraid to show your true colors”
2. “Color outside the lines once in a while”
3. “Try something you’re not good at, then try it again”
4. “Sameness is a waste of space”
5. “See something you like, take a picture, it’ll last longer”

Due to the high levels of engagement and the invaluable feedback adidas has received from its members, what started as a project event plan, has been further utilized as an ongoing resource to elicit feedback around upcoming promotional activities across the company. One concept tested in the community was “strike a pose while shopping,” which involved people taking photos of themselves at the Originals Store. Based on community input, adidas designed an interactive “strike a pose” table display in each retail store with Polaroid cameras. This idea was even extended further for a virtual “strike a pose” Facebook photo contest where people could submit their favorite pictures to adidas Originals on Facebook. Due to this community generated idea, adidas is currently developing a special section for this as well on its existing adidas Originals Facebook page.

ABC Studios created a long-standing private online community of television viewers with Passenger. Recently, “Lost” producers looked to the community to glean valuable feedback on which episodes were most worthy of Emmy nods. Because of ABC Studios’ intent of nominating Lost episodes on the basis of their standalone appeal, ABC Studios really wanted to listen to what non-viewers of the show had to say. Members of the community were able to watch a sampling of episodes, discuss which were most compelling and then submit feedback to the producers on their favorites.

Following is the joint submission between ABC Studios and Passenger for the 2008 Forrester Groundswell Award in the "Listening" category:

ABC Studios Advisory Panel: It’s Emmy Time!

ABC Studios had been working with Passenger’s customer collaboration platform and client services team to build and grow a private online community around fans of existing and new shows. The goal was to give producers and executives an opportunity to directly connect with viewers, engaging them in ongoing dialogue and incorporating that voice into the development of their shows. This collaborative environment not only gives ABC Studios unique insight into viewer habits, reactions and preferences, it also provides loyal fans an opportunity to affect real change in the storylines, characters and overall creative direction.

In May 2008, ABC Studios worked with Passenger’s community managers to create a special Activity in its existing Advisory Panel community around the popular TV series, “Lost.” In preparation for the upcoming Emmy submissions, ABC Studios reached out to community members who were *not* viewers of the hit TV show to preview several episodes from season four and elicit feedback on which should be submitted for an Emmy nomination. Due to the complex nature of Lost’s storyline, ABC Studios wanted reactions from those not familiar with the show to get an objective opinion on the episode’s standalone appeal.

The engaging discussions in the community and valuable feedback from this collaboration directly influenced the producers’ decision to submit the episode “The Constant” for Emmy consideration. To thank their community members, Lost’s Executive Producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse gave a special shout out and thank you to the ABC Studios Advisory Panel in their June podcast, featured on ABC.com.

The feedback was right on target, as the producers of “Lost” recently learned of their Emmy nomination for Outstanding Drama Series, as well as six other Emmy nominations for the show (results will be announced at the awards ceremony in September).