Involve the end-user
Springwise.com reports here about a new business idea from a company called Crowdspirit. What blogs, citizen journalism and YouTube have done for media, Crowdspirit hopes to do for product development. Crowdspirit will work two ways. Inventors submit ideas for innovative new products and contributors submit problems for inventors to work on. On top of this the Crowdspirit community will be involved in a product’s specifications. After prototyping, selected community members test and help fine-tune the products. The community members could also be involved for example as acting as a product’s ambassador.
I think this is a very interesting way to go concerning product development in the future. We have already seen example here and there were companies allows the consumer to specify products out of personal taste. Another recent trend is to involve the end-users in the production of marketing and communication. Martin Jönsson is talking about this trend here (only in Swedish unfortunaltely). One example he gives is Current TV, another is when Chevrolet asked for help to produce a new Tahoe commercial (probably a lot of non-consumers did send in their proposals as well with complains about gas-guzzling and global warming…). This is something you have to accept when inviting the consumers closer to the heart of your brand. And personally I think that listening careful to the voice of the consumers are the single most important thing to do for a brand today. Crowdspirit is trying to take this a step forward by involving the crowds in every aspect of a product’s life-cycle. If it will work it is a great idea. Let’s see if the consumers are ready to interact all the way from idea to distribution.
Andra bloggar om: design, innovation, produktutveckling, användargenererat, reklam, marknadsföring
Wednesday 20 December 2006, 08:42
[...] As I reported the other day in the post Involve the end-user this will create possibilities for companies to involve their customers in everything from design to marketing. Because when we have started the crusade we will not stop by only creating our own stuff, we would very much be involved in the creative process of our favourite brands as well. Companies that will understand and quickly adopt this new creativity will be the winners of the future. We will see old habits change as well. The print-on-demand company BookSurge owned by Amazon is an example of a new born flexibility. The publishing companies have to understand that they are selling stories which necessarily doesn’t need to be in the shape of a book, and doesn’t need to be shipped around the world on a trailer. [...]
Wednesday 20 December 2006, 17:48
Crowdsourcing product development…
What blogs, citizen journalism and YouTube have done for media, CrowdSpirit hopes to do for product development, reports Springwise.
“The Scottish-French venture’s focus is on harnessing the power of crowds to allow inventors and adaptor…
Wednesday 10 January 2007, 22:05
[...] Ad Age har, i sann user-generated anda och ganska säkert med viss inspiration av Time’s upphöjande av individen till årets person, utsett konsumenten till årets reklambyrå. (Advertising Age med en förklaring av Bloom på How and Why We Picked the Consumer as Agency of the Year). Martin Jönsson har också skrivit en hoper postningar i samma ämne: Konsumenten viktigare än reklambyrån eller hans lista om Så blir du din egen reklambyrå vilket kommenteras hos David: Involve the end-user och Dabitch menar att om nu konsumenten faktiskt fixar uppåt fem reklamspotar till Super Bowl så är det väl så: AdLand. Brand New är däremot lite mer frågande: Really?. [...]
Monday 2 April 2007, 16:17
[...] David Carlson) Leave a [...]