Crowdsourced chocolate bar promotes Yellow Pages in New Zealand

Almost a year ago we wrote about the Yellow Treehouse, the pop-up restaurant created by the publisher of the New Zealand Yellow Pages to prove that all the suppliers for any project can be found through its listings. Not content to stop there, it turns out the company is now in the midst of another inventive promotion—this time, to create a chocolate bar that embodies the colour yellow. It all began in August, when Yellow put out a call for video auditions for its new, as-yet-unnamed project. Some 80 or so applications came in, and Yellow selected Josh Winger, a 28-year-old surfer and aspiring actor, to fill the role. Next, it announced Winger’s mission, which is to design, market and distribute a chocolate bar that tastes like the colour yellow—and to use only companies listed in the Yellow books, both online and mobile, in the process. To gather Kiwis’ opinions on what yellow would taste like, Winger first placed small cards in cafes, fruit shops and ice cream stores across New Zealand soliciting suggestions. Next, he made a nationwide tour and handed out 45,000 samples of chocolate in four competing flavours: pineapple custard, banana French toast, kowhai honey and lemon tart. Pineapple custard won the day, and the resulting chocolate bars will soon go into production. Currently, the project is soliciting consumers’ votes on four alternate package designs. Winger’s progress can be followed in detail on Twitter, Facebook and the Yellow Chocolate site. Combining one part crowdsourcing, one part viral marketing and one part pure creative flair, Yellow’s effort demonstrates once again that a little alternative thinking can blow traditional advertising out of the water. How is *your* brand using the crowds and social media to flex its own promotional muscle…? (Related: Contest replaces ad campaign for Nissan launch — Job contest spotlights Great Barrier Reef Islands — Vitaminwater’s new flavour created with Facebook app.) Spotted by: Kendall Flutey