10 - Customer co-creation: moving beyond market research to reduce the risk in new product development

Abstract

Forecasting the demand for new products is becoming increasingly difficult in many markets. A new method to decrease the failure rate of new products builds on the idea to integrate customers deeply into the innovation process. This process of ‘customer co-creation’ starts with an open call for participation to a community of designers and hobbyists to submit a new product concept. Reactions and evaluations of other consumers towards the posted concepts are encouraged in the form of internet forums and opinion polls. The product concept is then presented to the customer community for evaluation. Only if the number of interested consumers exceeds a minimum threshold, are investments in final product development made, merchandising settled, and sales commenced. This paper illustrates this process of customer co-creation with the example of Threadless.com, a pioneering company in the apparel market from the US.