What roles do consumers currently have in product innovation? This article distinguishes between 5 roles, based on the amount of influence and freedom consumers have in this. The article is a summary of a literature study and uses current cases to clarify how 'co-creation' relates to other forms of consumer involvement. It also discusses the most important advantages and challenges of co-creation.
Consumers today are more influential, critical, involved and connected than ever before. In addition, it is increasingly difficult to bring a new product to the attention, due to a surplus of products and ever-increasing (social) 'media clutter'. As a result, many products fail shortly after introduction. Companies are therefore increasingly focusing on 'consumer engagement', actively involving the consumer, in order to create superior customer value in this way. How is this applied in practice and what roles do consumers play exactly?
In my research I have made a distinction between 5 roles that consumers can take on peru phone number list in innovation or new product development (NPD).
Figure 1: The roles of the consumer in innovation and NPD, with associated example cases.
1. The role of ' Insight Provider ' corresponds to traditional market research, where consumers share their opinions and insights. The Internet plays an increasingly important role in this, with techniques such as netnography and text mining. The Insight Provider himself has little direct influence on NPD, but for example provides insight into needs or evaluates new product concepts.