Co-creation
We think the following definition is the most accurate: “Co-creation refers to the involvement of consumers in product innovation and development. Co-creation involves bringing end-users together to develop the product to cater to their own needs. It is a management initiative to increase consumer engagement with the brand while building healthy consumer relations and providing better user experience. With the increasing focus on consumer-oriented marketing, the value generated by customer co-creation is at its peak. Having a say in production and company innovation brings a sense of belonging in the consumers which in turn generates consumer loyalty and engagement” (Jain, 2017).
Here are some of co-creation benefits:
- When customers understand the brand mission well this helps a brand to stay on track with its mission.
- Co-creation can potentially help a brand to retain a creative and operational position in the market by simply tapping the creative and inspired talents of the masses often and at little or no cost.
- It can, globally and locally, incorporate consumers’ tastes, preferences, values into the development of brands, products or services.
- Finally, rather than using surveys and focus groups to try to understand what consumers want, co-creation allows the participation of the company’s most valued customers.
(Efomi, 2018)
Co-creation” is often used interchangeably with crowdsourcing. Although there are some similarities but are two different concept.
Co-created value arises in the form of personalised, unique experiences for the customer (value-in-use) and ongoing revenue, learning and enhanced market performance drivers for the firm (loyalty, relationships, customer word of mouth). Value is co-created with customers if and when a customer is able to personalise his or her experience using a firm’s product-service proposition – in the lifetime of its use – to a level that is best suited to get his or her job(s) or tasks done and which allows the firm to derive greater value from its product-service investment in the form of new knowledge, higher revenues/profitability and/or superior brand value/loyalty (Wikipedia, 2018)
REFERENCES:
- Efomi, C. (2018). “Content is King” but User-Generated Content rules. Incorporation of User-Generated Content in the marketing mix and at the heart of e-commerce. p80 – p90. Business School of the University of The West of Scotland.
- Jain, Y., (2017) Co-creation: User Generated Content Techniques [Online] Available: https://conceptallies.com/cocreation-user-generated-content/ [Accessed: 28 July 2018].
- Wikipedia (nd.) Co-creation [Online] Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-creation [Accessed: 9 October 2018].
