Nissan Crowdsources The Future

In line with its global corporate vision of "Enriching People's Lives', Nissan Singapore recently launched a Facebook application on its fan page, leveraging on the crowdsourcing phenomenon.

Called Nissan Futurelogy, the application allows its Facebook fans to upload text, pictures or videos of what they think Nissan should build as cars in the future.  Fans will get to vote for the best ideas, and the top 10 voted contributors will win cash prizes.

‘Nissan prides itself as a company commited to building cars to maintain a sustainable society for future generations. After all, its cars are ultimately driven by the society, so what better way than to invite people to have a stake in the development of future Nissan models,' said Ron Lim, General Manager for Tan Chong International.

The crowdsourcing phenomenon has been gaining momentum around the world, with some technology brands harnessing the collective wisdom of communities as a mean to enhance product innovations and improve services.

In the automotive sector, Nissan is one of the earliest adopters of this crowdsourcing platform.

‘Communities in social networks are already having conversations about brands, whether brands are participating or not.  These conversations are real and authentic, based on the users’ own experiences or observations.  If a brand can be more active in these communities, it will be able to gain valuable insights to help them make products that are more relevant to their users’ needs,’ said Jimmy Lim, Head of Invention for Mindshare Singapore, the agency who masterminded the Futurelogy social strategy.

Top voted ideas on the Futurelogy application will be submitted to Nissan Japan for consideration in their future product developments. Nissan Futurelogy will be used as an 'always on' gateway between the brand and communities. The application will also allow users to join forums, check Nissan news and even allows the community to organize Nissan related events themselves.

'We believe Nissan will benefit from this crowdsourcing platform because knowledge and talents of the community are leveraged to create content and solve problems. We intend to let the community to thrive organically by ceding some control. One of our key objectives will be to attract the 370Z and GTR fans to use Futurelogy as their official social destination,' said Chan Wai Leng, Senior Marketing Manager for Tan Chong International.