LONDON: Unilever, the consumer goods giant, will use "crowdsourcing" to generate new TV and print ads for Peperami, its meat snack range, in the UK, rather than working with an ad agency on the campaign.

"Crowdsourcing" is one of a growing number of options for brands hoping to use Web 2.0 for research purposes, but what makes Unilever's move qualitatively different is that it has also dispensed with its previous agency in the process.

The Anglo-Dutch firm had been working with Lowe London on the account, but has now asked for suggested executions from members of Ideabounty, which defines itself as "a magical place that allows clients to post creative briefs and for creatives to sell their ideas."

As part of this process, it is offering $10,000 (€6,836; £6,018) for the best submissions, and Matt Burgess, the managing director of four Unilever brands, including Peparami, said Lowe had partly been a victim of its own success.

The agency, he argued, had "done great work on the account over the years. They've created a strong creative vehicle that's extremely well-defined and very portable."

However, "their great work has created a problem for them, because it makes Peperami the obvious candidate for crowdsourcing."

Rather than loosely-formed plans, Unilever wants this approach to yield creative work with the same production values as its existing ads, while offering a greater number of ideas for it to choose from.

It was this ambition to "get the creative back from 'good' to 'outstanding' again", Burgess said, that led to the decision to "increase the amount of creatives exposed to this brief. This is the overriding driver."