Consumer engagement may be the marketing mantra of our time, but Laurent Florès sees a fundamental problem: Good ideas can be drowned out by a flood of bad ones.

Consumer panels, both online and live, have become popular ways for companies to float and road-test new ideas. Online panels are often run like beauty pageants, where consumers vote for ideas that a company is considering. This shows the relative popularity among a limited set of ideas; but what if none of the ideas put forward by the marketing department are very good? (INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE)

Tags: advertising, crowdsourcing, marketing, media