Dive Brief:

• GE Appliances launched Giddy, an online social community that connects creators with businesses in need of help with projects and product development, according to a press release. Businesses and brands can use the mobile platform to post a challenge for community members to solve through developing creative solutions or designing products.
• GE plans to launch Giddy's first major challenge this week at CES 2018, where community members will identify pain points for modern homeowners and attempt to solve the issues with product sketches or designs.
• Giddy will also manage the online communities for GE Appliances' FirstBuild businesses. FirstBuild, which launched more than three years ago, is a co-creation platform allowing the appliance company to create new and quick-to-market products. Businesses pay to use Giddy, but community members can access the tool for free. Once registered, users can view all existing challenges posted and work on those that match their interests and expertise.

Dive Insight:

With Giddy, GE Appliances is recognizing the abundance of untapped knowledge and innovation that exist online and the value that it can offer other companies that share its goals of developing next-generation products. Using digital platforms to directly engage with creators and fresh ideas is an important way for brands to position themselves as forward-thinkers and ensure their continued relevance in the market through innovation that eliminates pain points in everyday technology use.

Brands have long used crowdsourcing via social media and digital platforms to pinpoint ideas for new products and maintain a pulse on customer sentiments and loyalty. This has been the case in both the B2B and B2C categories, as consumers generally appreciate opportunities to share their ideas and feel valued by brands. Giddy might take that idea a step further in the B2B space, allowing specialist creators to easily collaborate with businesses in need of creative assists but ones that don't necessarily have the budgets or bandwidth to do all of those tasks in-house.

"Yes, the technology is great, but the value is in Giddy’s creative community from artists to engineers and makers," Giddy CEO Taylor Dawson said in a statement. "We saw the power of community and open innovation at FirstBuild. If it worked that well for GE Appliances, we're confident other companies can benefit from a similar approach."