“Customer-Made” 1

“CUSTOMER-MADE” 1. Definition and insights

CUSTOMER-MADE: “The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.”

Consider any or all of the following:

• Status: people love to be seen, love to show off their creative CUSTOMER-MADE: time to tap into THE GLOBAL BRAIN! skills and thinking.

• Bespoke lifestyle: something consumers have been personally Introduction involved in should guarantee goods, services and experiences that are tailored to their needs. Letʼs get this out of the way once and for all: trends are not one-off coining affairs. Some trends are worth tracking for years and • Cold hard cash: getting a well deserved reward or even a profit years, especially if they represent a radically new definition of cut for helping a company develop The Next Big Thing is irre- what constitutes value to consumers. INFOLUST is one of them. sistible. So is GENERATION C. And from a business and innovation an- gle, weʼd like to argue that the CUSTOMER-MADE trend, co- • Employment: in an almost ironic twist, CUSTOMER-MADE is creating with your customers, is the most important one to watch. turning out to be a great vehicle for finding employment, as it Not because everything has to or will be co-created in the future, helps companies recruit their next in-house designer, guerrilla but because tapping into the collective experiences, skills and advertising agency or brilliant strategist. ingenuity of hundreds of millions of consumers around the world is a complete departure from the inward looking, producer- versus- • Fun and involvement: there's pleasure and satisfaction to be consumer innovation model so common to corporations around derived from making and creating, especially if co-creating with the world. brands one loves, likes or at least feels empathy for?

So hereʼs yet another CUSTOMER-MADE update, exactly one year after our last coverage, bringing you new insights and hands- on examples of firms already profiting from co-creating with their customers. But first, letʼs start with a recap:

www.trendwatching.com 1 / 23 What is CUSTOMER-MADE not? 2. So… Who’s doing what? DIY advertising

Itʼs NOT plain feedback without an answer, it's not Do-It-Yourself, it's not customization, it's not even personalization, as all of these actions take place after companies have decided what the basics are, which products and services and experiences they're willing to hand over to consumers. Case in point: consumer voting campaigns like onvotetouspourdanette.com or straightupflavor.com. Virtually every brand these days seems to be inviting their cus- Sure, they're fun, but at the same time have a hopelessly tired feel tomers to contribute to their next advertising campaign. If you be- to them. Once true CUSTOMER-MADE becomes the norm, it lieve that this is proof that co-creation is in fact an established should be the companies voting for whatever consumers choose trend, think again. to submit! Sure, recent examples like LʼOrealʼs You Make The Commercial, Why now? FireFoxʼs Flicks, MasterCardʼs Write a Priceless Ad, JetBlueʼs Travel Stories and McDonaldsʼ Global Casting are good fun For decades, consumers have been saving up their insights and (hell, if consumers really like your brand, they donʼt even need a rants about the stuff they consume, simply because they didn't contest, as illustrated by these cool, unofficial American Apparel have adequate means to interact with companies, or with other ads), but while getting some of your customers involved at a tacti- consumers for that matter. No longer. These fickle, wired, empow- cal marketing level is better than nothing, it doesnʼt touch upon the ered, infolusty, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC truly massive opportunities that the CUSTOMER-MADE trend has (Master of Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', to offer when you move beyond advertising: from product devel- in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have direct opment to open-conversation feedback schemes: influence on what companies develop and produce for them. Product development It certainly helps that these same consumers are also part of GENERATION C: they're creative and increasingly have access to The easiest way for brands to dip their toes into CUSTOMER- professional hardware, software, and online distribution channels MADE and tap THE GLOBAL BRAIN is to announce product or to show (and dictate) companies what it is they expect from them, service development contests, open to consumers from around using text, sound, picture and video in ever more powerful ways. the world. Add to GEN C the millions of lead users, early adopters, brilliant business professionals dying to give you a piece of their mind, and Letʼs start with some CUSTOMER-MADE contests held since our youʼll end up with THE GLOBAL BRAIN, waiting for you to tap into last update: they go beyond the usual ʻsend-us-your-product-idea- its experiences and skills. More on THE GLOBAL BRAIN in a fu- and-win-a-voucher-for-a-free-ice-cream- ture Briefing, but you probably get the picture: your brand's Next and-donʼt-expect-us-to-actually-do-something-with-itʼ: Great Idea could come from Sao Paulo or Singapore, if you open up your corporate fortress to smart individuals from around the world. If you don't, someone else surely will.

www.trendwatching.com 2 / 23 What goes for phones, also goes for coffee. Nespressoʼs 2005 Design Contest aimed at imagining the future of coffee rituals, yielded gems like the Nespresso InCar coffee machine and the Nespresso Chipcard (which stores coffee preferences for registered individuals, and when inserted into a vending machine, communicates with a central database to brew a personalised cup of coffee). Pictures of the winning concepts can be found at gizmag.co.uk/go/5493/gallery. Do check out the Illy Design contest too, as featured in our previous update.

The Nokia Concept Lounge took place in summer 2005 (some brands DO get it, and surprisingly it's often the brands that already have a strong competence in design or product development: ;-), Hang plastic/ﬂexible magnifying glasses from shelving units, mak- but we thought the initiative was too well executed to not mention ing it easier for senior citizens and visually impaired people to in this update. The lounge invited designers in the Benelux to read production information. share ideas and design the next new cool phone. Not surprisingly, in a GLOBAL BRAIN world, entries came from all over, with the End of last year, Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn did some- winner being a Turkish designer, Tamer Nakisci. His wrist-band thing sensible: instead of installing suggestion boxes that custom- style phone (the 'Nokia 888') must have had phone manufacturers ers don't use and stores don't empty, they asked customers for from China to Finland drooling. detailed feedback on how to improve their stores, through websites, leaﬂets and billboards. More than 55,000 customers took the bait, commenting on service, assortment and convenience levels in over 700 stores in The Netherlands. 700 submitters of ʻGolden Tipsʼ (which are online for all to see) won one-minute shopping sprees, with individual stores committing to implement suggestions as soon as possible. www.trendwatching.com 3 / 23 TV isn't exempt, either: The L-Word Fanisode competition called for co-creating an episode of the hit television show, assembling a full script, scene by scene. The contest ran from January - March 2006, with the show's real (paid) writers outlining a scene and giving guidance, giving fans about a week per scene to submit offerings, peruse others people's submissions, and vote. The grand prize winner got a script-writing session with L Word creator Ilene Chaiken and USD 2,000 credit at Saks Fifth Avenue. (Source: BusinessWeek.)

More design: the Electrolux Design Lab 2005 attracted entries from over 3,058 (!) design students from 88 countries around the world, the top six countries being the US, the UK, China, India,

Brazil and Italy. (GLOBAL BRAIN, anyone?). Participants were asked to design household appliances for the year 2020. Twelve ﬁnalists participated in a six-day design event in Stockholm, including workshops, model building and a competition for cash- awards, appliances and more (click here for pictures of the winning concepts).

The competitionʼs registration process was run via Designboom, an industrial design community. A smart move, as CUSTOMER- MADE isn't always about involving hundreds of millions of contributors. There's no harm in targeting relevant pockets of expertise if you're inviting others to co-create something speciﬁc (for open conversation schemes, see further down below). More to come: the theme for the new Electrolux DesignLab 2006 is “Healthy Eating Habits in 2016”, asking for product ideas for food preservation and preparation.

Stylish Japanese purveyor of all things minimalist Muji is also launching an international design competition, which is about to start, well, now. Calling on the entire GLOBAL BRAIN, Mujiʼs first theme is “SUMI”, (corner / edge / end). From the siteʼs briefing: “The objective is not to design something that is placed in the middle of the room, but towards the edges, not at the centre and not directly around the centre; you should look for somewhere that evades the eye, send us an object designed for that place, and name it as you wish. We are not asking for any particular genre, it What about automotive? You may remember our earlier coverage could be anything from furniture, stationery and office equipment, of Peugeotʼs worldwide, bi-annual Concours Design which netted to everyday items.” Just like aforementioned Nespresso, winners Peugeot the Moovie, a two-seat electric concept car designed by will be announced at the Milan Salone. Letʼs see which André Costa. The next contest will start this August, no doubt at- CUSTOMER-MADE product pops up in Muji stores from Tokyo to tracting an even more global crowd. Other car brands: get moving! London next year?

www.trendwatching.com 4 / 23 Ongoing development bring together lead users (those consumers that face the needs that will be general in the marketplace, but face them months or All of the examples above are a great way to really get started years ahead of the rest of the marketplace, and are positioned to with CUSTOMER-MADE. But only a few companies have truly benefit significantly by obtaining a solution to those needs) to dis- integrated this way of thinking into everything they do. One of the cuss various topics of interest to both Philips and participants. The leaders in integrating CUSTOMER-MADE into its corporate fabric, first topic of discussion and research was video telephony: a num- P&G, is not slowing down: its Connect + Develop program and ber of participants received the latest in video telephony equip- other innovation projects now produce more than 35% of the ment to be tested at home. A new topic will be announced shortly. companyʼs innovations. In fact, R&D productivity at Procter & The website will give you some good cues for setting up your own Gamble has increased by nearly 60%. In the past two years, P&G lead users community, so sign up! launched more than 100 new products for which some aspect of development came from outside the company. Among P&Gʼs most successful connect-and-develop products to hit the market are Olay Regenerist, Swiffer Dusters, the Crest SpinBrush, and the Create and sell Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (source: HBR, March 2006). Moving past contests and gifts, this is where it gets really interesting: co-creators receiving a cut of whatever gets developed based on their input, suggestions, design or ideas.

Check out:

P&G also recently rebranded its Tremor Moms program to Vocal- point. In their own words: ʻʼVocalpoint is a unique marketing brand powered by the Procter & Gamble Company that helps companies do a better job developing products and services that moms care about and want to talk about. We work with this influential group of moms to help companies in industries that include entertainment, “Jetzt ist Ihre Kreativität gefragt!“ Austrian manufacturer Frenken- fashion, music, food and beauty. We collect feedback and gener- burger recently asked customers to come up with new flavours for ate valuable knowledge and insight for our clients through sur- its all natural hemp milk drink, Trinkhanf. Plain hemp milk is veys, product sampling and previews of products and services.” highly nutritious but tastes bland, so Frenkenburger previously P&G as the champion of CUSTOMER-MADE, to the point of sell- launched mango/ginger, cocoa/vanilla/maple and coffee-flavoured ing its co-creation expertise to others. Not bad. varieties. To further expand the Trinkhanf line, Frenkenburger challenged creative customers to create tasty new flavours using fruits, herbs, or other natural ingredients. A panel of judges is now in the process of picking a winner, and the winning recipe will go into production. Aware that co-creators should share in profits, Frenkenburger will pay the winner one euro-cent per bottle sold. Granted, that's not exactly spectacular, but it beats a 25 dollar voucher ;-)

What works for FMCG works for tech and appliances as well: Philips-owned LeadUsers.nl has just completed its second lead user centric project, which was all about discussing the quality of sleep. The site has been active since August 2005, and aims to www.trendwatching.com 5 / 23 Ongoing conversations

Let's not forget CUSTOMER-MADE as an ongoing conversation, in many ways the Holy Grail of marketing. Think companies not just staging contests or asking for themed, detailed suggestions, but really hopping on the Cluetrain Manifesto. The following examples are a start...

Another example of create and sell: LEGOʼs LEGO Factory has been around for a while, but it remains an inspiring example of how to truly unleash THE GLOBAL BRAIN. Children and other building enthusiasts visiting the site are invited to design models (using easy to use, free downloadable software) and take part in competitions for LEGO prizes. A popular contest last year entitled winners to have their model mass produced and sold in Shop@Home, receiving a 5% royalty on each set sold. While cus- In the UK, Orange has set up Talking Point, where customers can tomers can still upload their creations and have them become part tell Orange how they feel about all sorts of things - not just of Legoʼs ofﬁcial catalogue, the royalty scheme sadly has been phones. Orange promises to listen, and to use the info to shape nixed. Bring it back! the way they think about and do things in the future. A number of questions (like “what in your life would you like to see technology improve?”) make it easier for visitors to share their thoughts. This isn't really a sparkling conversation, but it's better than nothing, in what is still very much a one-way arena.

More CUSTOMER-MADE beverage innovation! Danish Vores Øl (ʻOur Beerʼ) claims to be the world's ﬁrst open-source beer. The recipe and the entire brand is published under a Creative Com- From April to October 2005, Itaú, Brazil's largest bank, launched a mons license, meaning that anyone can use Vores Øl's recipe to campaign titled "O Itaú quer ouvir você" , which means (how re- brew the beer or to create a derivative. As long as home brewers freshing!) "Itaú wants to listen to you". Through a massive ad publish the recipe under the same license, theyʼre free to make campaign, and by using channels such as dedicated 0800 num- money from their efforts, which includes free access to Vores Ølʼs bers, e-mail, and online chats, employees at their banks, and ac- design and branding elements. Cheers! tual telephones at ATMs, Itaú went far beyond the usual concept of suggestion boxes. They even promised to get back to participants in ﬁve working days, commenting on suggestions made. First results: an average of 7.200 requests, complaints, and suggestions per month. www.trendwatching.com 6 / 23 iPod nano, the Mighty Mouse, Google Talk, Motorola ROKR E1, Sony Ericsson P910, Electrolux Roomba, and the Mac Mini. This kind of aggregation of passionate lead users (we're talking consumers truly obsessed with gadgets here, who not only want to know about the latest, but also buy and use it) may yield your brand more insights and suggestions in a week than your innovation lab and market research department can come up with in a year!

It should come as no surprise that the unsanctioned ʻHow Would You Changeʼ theme is catching on with avid users: other sites, part of Weblog Inc, who also publish Engadget, are chiming in:

Equally laudable, Honda UK is sponsoring a new blog network, How would you change MySpace? 2TalkAbout.com, that lets audiences publish their views on well- How would you change Digg? known brand as well as respond to other people's views. The mo- How would you change Flickr? tor company is the ﬁrst brand to associate itself with the network: the site, called 2TalkAbout Honda is aimed at anyone with an interest in Honda cars, especially the newly introduced Honda Civic, and was launched as the new model was unveiled at the Geneva Motorshow.

Although the online community will be completely independent And to add just one more industry from Honda, Honda engineers and associates will regularly log on to this Briefing: in the world of to contribute to and respond to feedback, giving users direct ac- hospitality, a similar phenomenon cess to the brand. (Source: Revolution.) Honda of course realises can be found on FlyerTalk.com, a that it's better to participate than stand on the sidelines: online community for avid (and highly discussions on how to improve YOUR brand already are, or will profitable!) business travellers. In soon be, everywhere. Witness the following: fact, so many suggestions and complaints for and about major hotel chains were piling up on that site, that Starwood Hotels and Resorts seconded William Sand- ers, better known as the Starwood Lurker, to keep an eye on the forums, 8 hours a day. Since he openly started participating in November 2002, the Starwood lurker has posted more than 11,000 replies, (which comes down to an average of more than 5 postings a day!), engaging in conversations with some of Star- wood's most valuable customers. No word on how much money this has made Starwood, but we guess it's many times more than Mr. Sander's salary. Now, you could of course decide that all of the above is too much work, or too expensive, and ignore it... (Yes, even multi-billion dollar brands have told us that finding the 'budget' for dedicating just one full-time person to personally monitor the thousands of conversations about their brand would be a real challenge.) But in a review-driven, transparent world, the alternative to CUSTOMER- MADE is finding out about your customers' feedback, suggestions, and yes, anger, through publicly accessible name-them (and sometimes shame-them) websites:

To get a taste of how third parties are increasingly doing what Positive Fanatics (IKEA) brands themselves neglect to capitalise on, check out the highly Virgin Brand informative, and often brutal, ʻHow Would You Change or Improveʼ Netﬂix Fan topics that Engadget.com ("a web magazine with obsessive daily Victoriaʼs Dirty Secret coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electron- Scion Tribe ics") has been running. Their most recent one was for the Xbox And so on! More on how to get started below, in the opportunities 360. Other brands and services so far have included Tivo, Gmail, section. Skype, Creative Zen Vision, iPod video, Sony Ericsson W800, www.trendwatching.com 7 / 23 CUSTOMER-MADE millionaire? The PR value and goodwill alone will be worth many times more. 3. Next

c. Intermediaries will reap riches: besides aforementioned 2TalkAbout.com, check out companies like Informative, Com- munispace, WaveMetrix, Buzzmetrics and MouthShut who are helping to kick-start and manage the conversation and co-creation processes between 'producer' and 'consumer'. With traditional brands shit-scared to really open up to their customers, fearing the deluge of hitherto unanswered questions, complaints and suggestions, there's money in helping them get started in a controlled environment. Some thoughts and observations on how the CUSTOMER-MADE trend may evolve: a. The media world is CUSTOMER-MADE's coal mine canary (thank you, Jeff Jarvis). We have deliberately avoided businesses that are completely by and for consumers, i.e. the user-generated content revolution, as that is everywhere now, AND we spoke about it at length last year. But one more observation about citizen journalism in particular: it provides inspiration to any brand wanting to turn its customers into 'reporters', sending in ﬁndings, observations, and suggestions. And as the model is spreading like wildﬁre,* expect more consumers to 'get' and enjoy the concept. d. CUSTOMER-MADE will spread to non-businesses: politi- Citizen Journalism as the open innovation model of the future? cians and city-governments are latching on. In Queens, NY, as- semblyman Jimmy Meng (D-Flushing) is sponsoring a "Make Your Own Law" contest, inviting his constituents to write legislation with the promise that the best proposal will be introduced as a bill in Albany. (Source: Daily News.)

Meanwhile, in Lewisham, UK, residents are helping to keep the southeast borough of London clean in CUSTOMER-MADE/ LOCAL BRAIN style: after installing special software on their cam- eraphone, observant townspeople can snap a picture of graffiti or * (OhMyNews, the South Korean ʻcitizen participatory journalismʼ overflowing litter bins, enter location details, and send it to the showcase, now boasts 700,000 daily readers and 41,000 citizen local council. The picture is then posted on the council's website, journalists, who receive USD 20 for a newsworthy piece, is going and cleaning crews are sent to resolve the issue. Read more on international, with a helpful USD 11 million investment from Soft- this initiative on our sister-site Springwise New Business Ideas. bank. Or check out South African www.reporter.co.za, which pays And yes, this comes close to citizen journalism as well! contributors 5 euros per accepted story.) e. THE GLOBAL BRAIN will grow and grow and grow: yes, b. Money talks: as co-creators get smarter AND realise how capitalism is triumphant, but where some still see the incredible much they're worth, expect kick-backs for co-created goods and rise of the consumer society as a source of hundreds of millions of services to go up. If you don't pay a fair share, talented members newly minted, free-spending consumers (in India, in China, in Bra- of THE GLOBAL BRAIN will take their business elsewhere. So zil, in Russia, in Turkey, in Nigeria) purchasing finalised mass- why not turn an inevitable development into a strength, hand- goods, YOU of course are salivating over the thought of millions of somely rewarding the next Golden Tip, and creating the first www.trendwatching.com 8 / 23 freshly educated, highly informed, super ambitious professionals opinion, insightful suggestion, new business idea and so on, sim- eager to join your global open-innovation team. ;-) ply because they're your avid users, and, in the best case, biggest fans?

Oh, and if fear of a deluge of complaints and requests is holding Opportunities you back: remember the deluge is already happening behind your back, and that if YOU aren't listening to your smart, able customers, someone else deﬁnitely is!

There are undoubtedly many other fears you may have, but there's a solution for every problem. Drop us an email if you're working on an interesting CUSTOMER-MADE project, and we'll send you some additional 'CUSTOMER-MADE Fears and Solu- When condensed into keywords, the CUSTOMER-MADE trend is tions' ﬁndings. You learn, we learn. ;-) about innovation, which these days is the sole factor determining a companyʼs fortune or downfall. And as innovation CUSTOMER- Furthermore, one trait that all of our trends have in common is that MADE style implies the end of traditional producer/consumer rela- they seriously alter consumer expectations. Once they become tionships, implies letting go of control, and realising that the entire accustomed to CUSTOMER-MADE being an option, consumers world could be your advisor, it also implies re-innovating innova- will take even less kindly to corporations who don't communicate, tion itself. Scary stuff for not-invented-here laggards, but heaven who don't respond to feedback, who don't use open source, who for those obsessed with truly involving smart consumers before don't act upon suggestions, who keep throwing new stuff over the they take their talent elsewhere. wall, hoping someone will like it. It's time to open up! (And yes, DO talk to us as well: trendwatching.com's founder Reinier Evers en- joys feedback, rants, praise and suggestions! Just email him at [email protected].)

If this reminds you of your current Innovation Team…

So where on earth to begin? The many examples and insights above (together with our November 2004 and May 2005 over- views should provide you with a pretty solid starting point for your own brainstorming sessions, innovation summits, strategic away- days and what have you. Examples are useful to get inspired, and to convince other execs that this is really happening. And the insights and learnings are for you and your team who then have to develop a kick-ass strategy AND implement it.

So, to get started, what's stopping you from setting up your own ipodlounge.com, hiltonlobby.com, virgincabin.com, ingcounter.com, saabbackseat.com, safewayaisles.com, samsungcall-in.com, or vodafoneconnection.com, and inviting your customers to engage in CUSTOMER-MADE goods, services and experiences? Are you ready to open up (even as an experiment) one strategy meeting, one design process, one brainstorming session to the millions of consumers who may have an expert www.trendwatching.com 9 / 23 CUSTOMER-MADE Part 2 | May 2005

What better way to become part of this trend than to learn from companies who already have embarked on a quest to become co- creators instead of obsolete DIY-ers? Please study the following new CUSTOMER-MADE examples (spanning the B2C spectrum from potato-chips to cars, and the globe from Brazil to Sweden), followed by a number of new CUSTOMER-MADE learnings. For your convenience, we're introducing ﬁve broad CUSTOMER- MADE categories: Consumer Marketers, Expert Outsiders, Ama- teur Outsiders, Remix Culture and User Generated Content 2.0. 1. Consumer markets

There is no stopping the trend of creative consumers contributing Picture by Bryan Boyer to, or even owning your advertising campaigns, both authorized and behind your back. Why? To feature on a website or billboard, "Get ready for CUSTOMER-MADE: the phenomenon of corpo- or have one's home-made commercial downloaded by hundreds rations creating goods, services and experiences in close of thousands of fellow consumers is just too much fun. We previ- cooperation with consumers, tapping into their intellectual ously highlighted CUSTOMER-MADE campaigns orchestrated by capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in what ac- Mercedes, Mazda and Coors Light, now add: tually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed. Consumerism will never be the same!" Introduction CUSTOMER-MADE is getting bigger and bigger. Sure, we were bullish on this trend when we introduced it last November, but still, the sheer number of new CUSTOMER-MADE spottings and insights surprised even us. To refresh your memory:

"For decades, consumers have been saving up their insights and While Nike was basking in the glory of Tiger Woods' winning shot at rants about the stuff they consume, simply because there were no the Masters Golf (GA) tournament, which involved a swoosh- adequate means to interact with companies, or with other con- brandishing golf ball getting priceless air time, Joseph Jaffe immedi- sumers for that matter. No longer. These ﬁckle, wired, empow- ately created and uploaded what no doubt will or should become the ered, informed, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC next Nike commercial: www.jaffejuice.com/2005/04/tiger_did_it_ak.html. (Master of Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have direct inﬂuence on what companies develop and produce for them.

It certainly helps that these same consumers are also part of GENERATION C: they're creative and increasingly have access to professional hardware, software, and online distribution channels to show (and dictate) companies what it is they expect from them, using text, sound, picture and video in ever more powerful ways."

www.trendwatching.com 10 / 23 Last winter, Dutch comedy TV show 6Pack, (which brings to- 2. Expert outsiders gether six people who have little to no television experience), set in motion a more than successful quest for the best CUSTOMER- Marketing and advertising sure is fun, but true CUSTOMER- MADE commercials, resulting in one million downloads for the MADE involves co-created goods, co-created services, co-created most popular submission, a Sara Lee commercial (Yo Oma), fea- experiences! So, waking up to the fact that there are hundreds of turing a 50 Cent loving, street-wise granny. Other brands partici- thousands of experts, innovators, inventors and so on outside pating in this contest that were lucky enough to attract GENERA- company walls, research labs and innovation units at large corpo- TION C's inventiveness: Pringles, Senseo, Clearasil, and ABN rations are increasingly NOT going it alone. Check out the follow- Amro Bank. Winning 'directors' were guaranteed TV air time and ing initiatives aimed at tapping expert outsiders (often designers pocketed EUR 2000. A new contest is in the making (probably and artists) for potentially lucrative new ideas: starting September of this year), and 6Pack, which is sponsored by Heineken, will be rolled out internationally soon. (Source: Springspotter Network, Maurits van Rijckevorsel.)

Last summer, Core 77, the industrial design site, teamed up with watch maker Timex for a global design competition called The Converse Gallery should really have been part of our initial Timex2154: THE FUTURE OF TIME (celebrating Timex's 150th CUSTOMER-MADE piece, as it was launched last August, and anniversary). Designers from more than 72 countries explored and has since then set the standard for CUSTOMER-MADE commer- visualized personal and portable timekeeping 150 years into the cials. The site features dozens of 24-second ﬁlms, CUSTOMER- future, resulting in over 640 entries. Winners can still be viewed MADE by Converse fans, who are asked to express what Con- online, and in the Timex Museum. verse shoes mean to them. The chosen ﬁlms are then broadcast on Converse's website, with the possibility of being aired on MTV and other cable networks. With hundreds of submissions and millions of visitors ever since, this is one tasty source of CUSTOMER-MADE inspiration.

In the same vein, Illy Cafe teamed up with Domus magazine in Going after the Converse demographics, Cadillac invited mem- April 2004, asking students and designers under the age of 35 to bers of GENERATION C to contribute to their series of five second create new ways of enjoying coffee ("create a place for meeting, commercials, which illustrated the speed of its CTS-V model, discovery and encounter"). Over the course of 10 months, 704 which can accelerate from zero to 60 in five seconds ("what ever you do, don't blink"). Amateur filmmakers could submit their own entries were received, roughly half coming from outside Italy. The 5-second spots (and win air time), with one of the chosen directors best 14 projects were exhibited in Milan this month (April 2005). also getting the keys to a brand new CTS-V. (Source: Adrants.) The winning concept is an escalator which functions both as a While the initial website now links to a CTS-V homepage, one of coffee machine and an art show. Coffee is served at the bottom of the 5 seconds ads can still be viewed at Ifilm. an escalator. On the way up, customers sip their coffee and enjoy a brief art exhibition. At the top of the escalator, they throw their And going from cars to crisps: In Turkey, Ruffles chips launched a plastic cup into a recycling machine that instantly molds it into a football themed CUSTOMER-MADE TV commercial campaign, ticket for an art exhibition or show. Also noteworthy is the Illyvator, called Ruffles Idea-logy, airing the 10 winning commercial scripts by Bryan Boyer. If this doesn't make you want to set up your own on national TV and rewarding the creators with an iPod. (Source: CUSTOMER-MADE contest, what will!? (Source: Springspotter Springspotters, Bilgen Aldan and Ozlem Hanoglu.) Network, Michell Zappa.) www.trendwatching.com 11 / 23 The third Peugeot Concours Design was launched in September 2004 at the Paris Motor Show, and the final results were shown at the Geneva Motor Show last month. After aspiring car designers were asked to design the Peugeot of their dreams for the near future, 3,800 projects (compared with 2,800 in 2002 and 2,050 in 2000) were sent in, from 107(!) countries. This year's winner was the Moovie, a two-seater vehicle for urban use by André Costa, a Portuguese industrial design student. The full-scale model of his design will be unveiled at Peugeot's stand at the Frankfurt Motor Show Note: yes, we know that design contests have been around for in September 2005. (Source: Springspotter Network, Özgür Alaz.) quite a while, but what is truly new is the global scale on which companies can now reach out to the best and brightest. If one key driver behind CUSTOMER-MADE is a consumer who demands to be involved and in control, the other driver surely is ONLINE OXYGEN, which enables this need.

A more ongoing approach involving outside experts can be found at Procter & Gamble, which launched its dedicated Connect + Develop program about ﬁve years ago, with the goal of having at least 50% of its new products derived from ideas generated by non-employee experts. Beside its own R&D employee base of 7,000, the company now has access to millions of potential innovators. The results so far? Everything from Swiffer Wet Jet, Olay Daily Facials, Crest Whitestrips & Night Effects to Mr. Clean Auto- dry, Kandoo baby wipes and Lipﬁnity. (Source: Tech Central Sta- tion, Industry Week.)

In South Korea, mobile carrier KTF has held a contest to design new cell phones based on a "Cell Phone of Sensibility" theme, with a focus on usability and style. Just last week, 19 winners were announced, and a few of them may see their creations end up in Korean stores soon. (Sources: Engadget, Slashphone.)

www.trendwatching.com 12 / 23 3. Amateur outsiders

If 'experts' still conjure up images of bespectacled geniuses don- ning white lab coats or black turtlenecks, it's time to get with the Pro-Am revolution: in a world dominated by the Creative Class, we're all amateur experts! So here's an overview of companies tapping EVERY user's mind, not just experts, for divine inspiration and award winning goods, services and experiences, bringing amateur outsiders fame if not money:

CUSTOMER-MADE pioneer Jones Soda has been letting its customers create 'custom soda labels' by submitting their own photos for a long time now (their label gallery now contains an astounding 285,285 pics); some of these are chosen as permanent, wide- distribution labels for Jones soda. In true CUSTOMER-MADE style, the Seattle based beverage company also actively asks for IKEA's "fiffigafolket" contest (Swedish for 'ingenious people') feedback on possible new flavors. (Source: Springspotter Net- which just came to an end, and is now in jury-phase, asked ama- work, Charlene Rooke.) teur outsiders to send in clever designs for storing home media (hifi sets, TV, DVD etc) in the living room. Out of 5,000 ideas sub- mitted, fourteen winners will be invited to IKEA headquarters for a workshop, and will receive EUR 2,500. More interestingly, the designs will actually get produced and end up in IKEA stores for all to see, buy and assemble. (Source: Springspotter Network, Okee Williams.)

In Brazil, Kaiser Beer embarked on a CUSTOMER-MADE adven- ture last year by asking their customers to co-create its Kaiser Novo Sabor: a new premium beer reﬂecting the opinions and personal taste preferences of more than 11,000 contributors in 130 Copenhagen's 3 star Park Hotel became the Hotel Fox this April cities across Brazil. The beer was an instant hit, with the initial 2, as Volkswagen 'adopted' the venue to promote its new Fox 11,000 contributors eager to play the role of brand ambassador. model. After inviting 20 street artists, graphic designers and illus- (Source: Springspotter Network, Paula Rizzo.) trators to redo the 61 rooms, consumer-artists too were asked to submit designs for the one room that is still in its original non- splendour. No word on the winner yet, but he or she gets to spend And the list goes on, from apparel to salads: two weeks in Copenhagen to implement his or her ideas with the help of an interior designer. (Source: Springspotter Network, Ja- son Park.)

www.trendwatching.com 13 / 23 At Threadless, an ongoing t-shirt design competition urges users to submit shirt designs, which are put into the running to be scored On a grander scale, and starting two years ago as a pilot, the for seven days. After those seven days, the highest scoring de- BMW Customer Innovation Lab was BMW's ﬁrst true signs are chosen to be printed and sold in the shop section. A CUSTOMER-MADE environment. Participants were handed an similar concept is pursued by Dutch Buutvrij, while CUSTOMER- online tool-kit, helping them develop ideas and showing how the MADE fabrics can be found at Naked & Angry ﬁrm could take advantage of advances in telematics, online services and driver assistance systems. From the 1,000 customers who used the tool-kit, BMW chose 20 and invited them to meet its engineers in Munich. BMW worked with German CUSTOMER- MADE intermediary Hyve to set up the service, just like Audi did when it ran its Audi Virtual Labs in 2001 and 2004. The Audi lab was focused on the development of 'infotainment' systems, gath- There's cold hard cash to be made at ering information about consumer expectations, preferences and OriginalSnowboartArt.com, where customers design snowboard upcoming trends in the infotainment world. A total of 1,662 con- graphics and receive a percentage of the proceeds when they're sumers participated, designing their own individual infotainment consoles, expressing 219 service ideas, giving 261 comments on sold. (Source: Springspotter Network, Jason Sturgill). a prototype console, and contributing 728 visions of future cars. Not bad ;-)

Edible CUSTOMER-MADE examples include Olvarit and Sumo Salad, the latter inviting customers to mix it up and suggest new salads on its site: every month one new CUSTOMER-MADE salad is selected, ending up on Sumo's ofﬁcial in-store menus (source: Springspotter Network, Özgür Alaz.) Catering to a younger audience is Netherlands-based Olvarit, who urged moth- ers to send in their favourite healthy baby food recipes. This re- sulted in a spanking new product line, Mama's Choice, which features eight winning meals, from Josine's 'French vegetables with ham' to Barbara's 'Fish stew with banana'. Needless to say, a picture of mother and child appeared on the labels of the food they CUSTOMER-MADE.

www.trendwatching.com 14 / 23 4. Remix culture

Is Remix Culture a techie-only affair? Nope. It works just fine for sneakers, too: all over the web, sneaker freaks are uploading pics of their 'remixed' shoes; check out French Shoes-Up, a gallery where Adidas customers display their own version of Adidas' Su- perstar line, celebrating its 35th anniversary (see picture above). Closely related to CUSTOMER-MADE, with a healthy dose of And who by now hasn't heard of the Adidas Zissou sneakers fea- open-source mentality added, is the burgeoning Remix Culture, tured in the movie 'The Life Aquatic'. White/yellow sneakers with spearheaded by hackers, but now embraced by savvy consumers light blue striping (see below), these fictional shoes had thousands who are either tired of having to deal with goods and services that of sneaker freaks lusting after them, until remixers not only de- don't do what they want them to do, or who want to combine the signed and produced their own - the DIY guide is still online - but best features of various offerings. Think Paul Rademacher's clever also put them up for sale on eBay earlier this year. (Source: pairing of Google Maps with Craigslist Classifieds, mapping by Springspotter Network, Bertrand Carton.) price range all properties for sale or rent in specific areas. Which actually delighted Google (no, not all companies freak out when users improve what's on offer) who not too coincidentally just launched code.google.com, a new tool for the other Pauls of this world, giving access to free source code and lists of Google's API services.

Remix Culture is also about clever programmers modifying Sony's Portable PlayStation days after it hit the shelves Only days in the US this March; remix fanatics have added chat and TV to the device's functionalities, cleverly capitalizing on the PSP's WiFi con- nection and other built-in, semi-locked online capabilities.

www.trendwatching.com 15 / 23 5. Consumer Generated Content 2.0 And to prove that user generated content is fast trumping any kind of What if your customers would actually provide all your content, not traditional guide, listing, or other lim- just a few TV commercials or one or two new products? For full ited overview, look no further than blown CUSTOMER-MADE, look no further than the more than IgoUgo. The online travel commu- turbulent world of media: citizen reporters, consumer reporters, or nity's 350,000 members offer what whatever you want to call them, are HOT. Check out: traditional guidebooks can't: hundreds of thousands of opinions on more than 4,000 destinations across the globe, plus suggestions and photos for everything from cheap eats and luxury accommodations, to must-see attractions and worthwhile day trips. (Source: Springspotter Network, Elizabeth Miles.)

It's actually not hard to see how any business dependent on global, 24/7 content feeds will have to embrace CUSTOMER- MADE to stay attractive. Which then brings us to... major news organizations, forced to take a cue from the OhMyNews.com for- Tate Britain in London is running a Write Your Own Label mat, not to mention the blogosphere: scheme. Visitors of the museum's website are asked to contribute their thoughts on how paintings should be described, and the cho- The BBC is actively encouraging customers to submit pictures sen submissions are then displayed next to the paintings in the and videos, which may then be used immediately on any BBC actual galleries. There's a nice touch of GRAVANITY in here too! News outlet, or end up in the In Pictures of the BBC website. (Source: Springspotter Network, James Davis.) Cleverly, not only does the BBC tell citizen reporters where to email their content to, they also provide a cell phone number, so camera phone pics can be MMS-ed instantly.

The Guardian has launched an appeal to readers to get snapping with their mobile phone cameras to generate coverage for the UK's forthcoming elections. The Blair Watch Project urges read- A decidedly grass-roots approach to publishing, JPG Magazine ers to email or MMS their pictures to The Guardian's Flickr ac- features photographs taken by contributing (amateur) photogra- count. They'll be available for public viewing, with the best pics phers who primarily work online, but want to share their work in republished in The Guardian's blog. (Source: The Mobile Technol- print. Each issue is centered around a theme, and anyone can ogy Weblog.) submit a photo via JPG's website. A less temporary approach can be found at NowPublic.com. Taking a cue from CUSTOMER-MADE knowledge pioneer From their website: "Seeing is believing, and you need to see Wikipedia, Microsoft's Encarta is now testing a system that al- more. Corporate news is missing this story. Again. You searched lows readers to suggest edits or additions to entries in its encyclo- and there's no decent footage. You need NowPublic. Assign the pedia. Editors will still check contributions for factual errors or evi- story. Get photos, video, audio ﬁles posted to your request by citi- dence of bias. Meanwhile, the number of topics/articles on zen journalists on location. See the truth for yourself and show the Wikipedia runs in the hundreds of thousands. world. NowPublic makes it easy to track down the real story and get the proof you need. Turn your blog posts into photo assign- ments. Watch fellow members vote to prioritize your story and chase down the footage. Give them a budget or recruit volunteers. Either way, the news is NowPublic." www.trendwatching.com 16 / 23 Promising to be equally entertaining (and disruptive) is Google Video Upload. Their tagline "Your work deserves to be seen" promises more GENERATION C meets CUSTOMER-MADE fun (not to mention another NOUVEAU NICHE accelerator). From the beta site (for now, users can only upload content; editors will be scanning and indexing the content before putting it live): "Whether you produce hundreds of titles a year or just a few, you can give your videos the recognition and visibility they deserve by promot- ing them on Google - for free: we're now accepting video from Not to be outdone, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's ZeD is a anyone who wants to upload content to us. As the content owner, late-night, arts-and-culture program that mixes amateur movies you decide whether you'd like to give away your video for free or with independent ﬁlm and studio-produced content. ZeD allows charge a price that you set for it. If you do charge a price, Google viewers to shoot, edit and upload their own short-form videos to will take a small revenue share to cover some of our costs". the show's website. ZeD receives between 200 and 300 viewer- Mmm... GENERATION C actually making money from their crea- produced videos per day, and employs a team of online editors to tions: TRENDWATCHING.COM approves. sift through the content, check it for copyright issues and either publish it on its website or pass it along to a producer who will give it a coat of professional polish, if needed.

Expect the media business to seriously feel the impact of the CUSTOMER-MADE trend in the very near future: thanks to an abundance of new channels (mobile, IP based TV, online niche publishing), an insatiable need for more content will fuel Con- sumer Generated Content 2.0. Consumers' appreciation of more opinionated, authentic, non-corporate owned material doesn't hurt either. And as everything avant-garde eventually becomes main- stream, this is what you want to keep a close eye on, and learn from the developments, before CUSTOMER-MADE hits your own industry full force.

Which then brings us to CUSTOMER-MADE TV networks:

On Al Gore's new Youth TV network, Current, programming will to a large extent be comprised of viewer submissions, which can be uploaded to the network's website. From Gore's launch state- ment': "The Internet opened a ﬂoodgate for young people whose passions are ﬁnally being heard, but TV hasn't followed suit. We intend to change that with Current, giving those who crave the empowerment of the Web the same opportunity for expression on television."

The people of Engerwitzdorf, Austria are ﬁlming, editing and pro- ducing their own regional news channel. The channel, Buntes Fernsehen, covers local politics, sports, events and anything that residents want to ﬁlm and are prepared to upload for others to watch on PCs.

Canadian BITE TV is taking the citizen's media/blogging approach to television. BITE will offer viewers the opportunity to submit their own video content including make-your-own television ads.

www.trendwatching.com 17 / 23 New CUSTOMER-MADE insights and learnings Opportunities

Examples are useful to get inspired, AND convince other execs Yes, CUSTOMER-MADE is a Big Trend. So where on earth to this is really happening; insights and learnings are for you and begin? The many examples and insights above (together with our your team who then have to develop a kick ass strategy AND im- November overview), and rereading our GENERATION C trend plement it. So here we go: should provide you with a pretty solid starting point for your own brainstorming sessions, innovation summits, strategic away-days and what have you.

Next for the CUSTOMER-MADE revolution? How about CUSTOMER-OWNED? As the number of CUSTOMER-MADE initiatives grows exponentially, savvy members of GENERATION C will demand serious compensation if not a fair percentage of whatever it is they've co-created with you. Soon, a simple iPod in Consumers are into CUSTOMER-MADE because they can: exchange for designing the ﬁrm's Next Big Thing just won't do. - get and control exactly what they want and need at their own terms Also expect a slew of intermediaries coordinating millions of - show off their creative skills or even become famous knowledge exchanges between producers and consumers, from - make money from their contributions and involvement talent brokers to project managers.

If CUSTOMER-MADE reminds you of some of your B2B strategies, you're right. In fact, the way you're already closely collaborating with your suppliers may well be applicable to your CUSTOMER-MADE strategies. More to follow on this in our next update.

CUSTOMER-MADE is a great alternative to traditional marketing: if you co-create products, participants obviously don't need to be 'told' about the product, plus they are far more likely to act as brand ambassadors.

In a review driven and transparent world, the alternative to CUSTOMER-MADE is ﬁnding out about your customers' feedback, suggestions, and anger through publicly accessible name-them-and- shame-them sites.

And in an almost ironic twist, CUSTOMER-MADE is turning out to be a great vehicle for recruiting the next in-house designer, guerrilla advertising agency or brilliant strategist. It's the trend that keeps on giving ;-)

www.trendwatching.com 18 / 23 CUSTOMER-MADE Part 1 | November 2004

Sure, some companies ARE now engaging creative customers in new ways. Recently, brands like Coors Light and Mercedes Benz invited customers to co-create advertising campaigns, with Mer- cedes encouraging proud owners of a Benz to submit snapshots of themselves next to their automotive objects of desire. And Mazda and Conde Nast have just partnered to create a similar contest whereby contestants can submit photos representative of their interpretation of Mazda's "Zoom-Zoom" slogan. (Thanks, Marketing has finally become a conversation. Not, in most cases, Adrants.com!) as was intended, BETWEEN corporations and consumers (that would make too much sense), but rather a global conversation These companies are clearly aware that tapping into the collective involving millions of consumers ABOUT corporations. On sites like intellectual capital of their customers yields great creative and Planetfeedback.com, thecomplaintstation.com, Epinions, 'real' content. However, let's not make the mistake to think that in About.com, on hundreds of thousands of blogs, community sites, the end these conversations will all be about communications and forums, viral emails, bulletin boards, and what have you, consum- branding: how about extending this cooperation with consumers to ers relentlessly exchange views, complaints, opinions and com- virtually everything a corporation does, by making the customer an ments about products and services, about brands, about compa- integral part of ALL creative and creational processes? nies, about YOUR company. TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed the latter "CUSTOMER- Why now? Because they finally can. For decades, consumers MADE": the phenomenon of corporations creating goods, serv- have been saving up their insights and rants about the stuff they ices and experiences in close cooperation with consumers, tap- consume, simply because there were no adequate means to in- ping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a teract with companies, or with other consumers for that matter. No direct say in what actually gets produced, manufactured, devel- longer. These fickle, wired, empowered, informed, opinionated oped, designed, serviced, or processed. The CUSTOMER-MADE and experienced holders of a MC (Master in Consumerism) are trend has been slowly building over the last five years, but with the getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which current onslaught of consumer activism and the rapid rise of includes wanting to have a direct influence on what companies GENERATION C, it finally seems ready for its big moment in the develop and produce for them. limelight, where TRENDWATCHING.COM expects it to stay for many years to come. It doesn't hurt that Management Guru C.K. It certainly helps that these same consumers are also part of Prahalad recently published 'The Future of Competition' an in- GENERATION C: they're creative and increasingly have access to sightful and highly recommended book on co-creation, which professional hardware, software, and online distribution channels prompted us to move CUSTOMER-MADE to the top of our emerg- to show (and dictate) companies what it is they expect from them, ing trends list! using text, sound, picture and video in ever more powerful ways. Mind you, CUSTOMER-MADE is NOT plain feedback, it's not Do- It-Yourself, it's not customization, it's not even personalization, as all of these happen after companies have decided what the basics are, which products and services and experiences they're willing to hand over to consumers, who can then (at best) modify certain elements, change a color, replace a cover. That's still pretty much a one-way conversation, business as usual.

So what DOES qualify as CUSTOMER-MADE? Check out the hands-on examples below; a random yet varied overview of CUSTOMER-MADE initiatives, both 'corporate' initiatives and grassroots movements, which should get you going.

www.trendwatching.com 19 / 23 Last year, 120,000 people around the world signed up to join Boe- At www.ipodlounge.com, avid iPod users (and aren't they all?) ing's World Design Team, an internet-based global forum that en- congregate not only to talk about their favorite device, but also to courages participation and feedback while the company is devel- show the world (and thus Apple) what they would like the next oping its new airplane. Activities include message boards, conver- iPod to do and to look like, or adaptations they've already created sations with the Boeing design team, and extensive discussions in their basement or garage. A fascinating combination of GEN- on what members like and don't like about air travel today, as well as features they'd like to see in their dream airplane. In Boeing's ERATION C and future CUSTOMER-MADE trends if we ever saw own words: "Flyers and aviation enthusiasts from around the world one. The site gets more than 5 million hits a day, and if we were are sharing the excitement of creating the airplane of the future." Apple designers, or Steve Jobs for that matter, we'd visit iPod Lounge weekly to get a good dose of CUSTOMER-MADE inspiration, and • • • • • probably recruit loads future employees while we were at it.

• • • • •

Shoe designer John Fluevog has a section on his site entitled Open Source Footwear, wherein serious Fluevog owners can submit designs for future shoes. The winning design actually gets put into production. CUSTOMER-MADE at its best!

• • • • •

A lot of talking and commenting goes on at www.niketalk.com, the TRENDWATCHING.COM is all in favor of conversations taking non-afﬁliated online sneaker community which so far has received place in the vicinity of beverages. Which is why we think Philips more than 200 million visits and 3.5 million posts. Every Sunday at Streamium Café is aptly named. It's where owners of Philips' new 9 PM EST, their sister site, chat room NikeChat, welcomes Nike WiFi TV sets and hiﬁ systems tell Philips where they think fans from around the world, to exchange views, tips and more. Streamium is going, and what Streamium should be able to do. Current discussions involve everything from the time format on the appliances' display to 'Support for Real Player RadioPass + Real Rhapsody.' How long before the discussion turns to the question of which OTHER Philips appliances should become WiFi enabled?

A similar set up for new Mini Cooper owners can be found at www.mini2.com, for Lego fanatics at news.lugnet.com/dear-lego (BTW, Lego itself allows programmers from outside the company to access to the code that controls its Mindstorm toy robot, leading to an increased range of activities the robot can perform, in ways the company never imagined), and for TiVo users at www.tivocommunity.com. About the latter: for the past four years, the 65,000 members of the self-organized TiVo Community forum have traded ideas on 'how to convince friends and family to buy a TiVo', 'how to deliver impromptu sales training sessions to Best Buy employees whose sales pitches need work', or 'how to be a better TiVotee'. CUSTOMER-MADE sales teams anyone? www.trendwatching.com 20 / 23 CUSTOMER-MADE games anyone? From Wikipedia: "Mod or modiﬁcation is a term generally applied to computer games, especially ﬁrst-person shooters such as Quake, DOOM and Half-Life, but also to real-time strategy games such as Warcraft III, Total Annihilation and the Command & Conquer series. Mods are made by the general public, and are entire new games upon them- Online Lovemark Google has always been open to suggestions selves. They can include new items, weapons, characters, ene- and comments from its millions of users: Google's social network- mies, models, modes, textures, levels, and story lines. They also ing site Orkut includes two communities with over 1,000 subscrib- usually take place in unique locations." ers: "What Should Google Do?" and "What Should Orkut Do?" And on Google's own business blog, visitors are encouraged to send their suggestions to [email protected]. And, gasp, they actually reply. A CUSTOMER-MADE treasure trove: who does NOT have some strong (and cool) views on what Google should do next?

One great CUSTOMER-MADE example is Counter-Strike, which started out as a Mod for Half-Life about four years ago. Counter- Strike is downloaded and then runs on top of legal versions of Half-Life. It now sells more copies than the original game itself: To prevent even more of you complaining about upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated TREND-WATCHING.COM's newsletters getting too long (see, servers. we're listening! ;-), we will only touch upon the now familiar CUSTOMER-MADE initiatives in the world of software. Let's not forget that Microsoft 'invites' millions to download beta versions of its software to test and improve, and don't even get us started on the Open Source revolution (under Open Source, thousands of volunteer programmers communicate over the Net to create, and continually improve, computer software products). At SourceForge.net alone, 883,000 registered users are cooperating on 80,000 Open Source software projects. We haven't seen any- Other great Mod examples are TheForce.net, which collects Mods thing yet! that make non-Star Wars games into proper Star War experiences, and Desert Combat, a modern day military modiﬁcation to the popular war game BattleField1942 from EA. And with games quickly becoming entertainment choice NUMBER ONE for the Digital Generation, you may want to learn from CUSTOMER- MADE examples from this industry whether you're in FMCG or banking. This is where CUSTOMER-MADE excitement and innovation will blossom for a long time to come!

www.trendwatching.com 21 / 23 And what about the open marriage between CUSTOMER-MADE and user-generated content? Check out four-year-old South Ko- rean OhMyNews. This online newspaper works with 26,000 'citizen reporters', who send in stories and pictures which make up 80% of all content. OhMyNews pays up to USD 20 per article, Yes, another Apple example, this one partly 'owned' by Apple. At though for many citizen reporters, getting their name in the paper Apple's iTunes store, user-created playlists enable customers to is the real reward. Fiercely outspoken, OhMyNews has success- upload their favorite music selections and share them with other fully challenged the traditionally conservative press in South Ko- customers, who can then buy the songs if they like what they hear. rea. CUSTOMER-MADE AND CUSTOMER-READ indeed! Needless to say, it was Amazon.com who pioneered this kind of CUSTOMER-MADE service, with their sophisticated recommen- dation system and customer book reviews, resulting in some of the most popular features of the Amazon.com site being entirely CUSTOMER-MADE.

• • • • •

In Holland, popular 24/7 news site NU.nl encourages readers to send in breaking-news pictures (since virtually everybody owns a digital camera or camera phone these days). The best images are also sold to ANP, the country's main news agency, who then pays these citizen photographers up to EUR 60 per shot.

The travel community meets at the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree, an online bulletin board with over 5,000 posts a day (Lonely Planet also receives around 1,000 emails and letters a week from customers, helping them to constantly ﬁne-tune their content), and at Virtual Tourist, where 400,000 members from over 219 countries share insights and experiences to help each other travel smarter, from ﬁnding the best place to get great airfares, accommodations or car rentals, to solid insider advice on what to see and do. In their own words: "VirtualTourist members are a friendly and helpful bunch and it's a snap to use the collective experience and brain power of our members to get the help you need."

www.trendwatching.com 22 / 23 Opportunities

Is the CUSTOMER-MADE trend spanking new? No. But with the gap between traditional business practices and truly empowered consumers now reaching significant proportions, the CUSTOMER- MADE trend will further accelerate, moving from fringe trend to mega trend. In fact, CUSTOMER-MADE may turn out to be one of the most exciting and long term engines behind change and innovation that the world of business has seen in years: a way of thinking that has the power to redefine the relationship between customer and brand, between consumer and producer, something that taps into the most awesome reservoir of intellectual capital ever assem- bled. If that's not enough to invoke spontaneous brainstorming sessions, TRENDWATCHING.COM doesn't know what is.

In future updates on this trend, we'll address topics like what makes certain brands more suitable for CUSTOMER-MADE than others (could it be the Love- marks concept?). Or how to use CUSTOMER-MADE as a recruitment tool. And we haven't even spoken about the risks that may exist in sharing everything with your customers (and thus inevitably with your competitors); new competition from 'amateurs' (think the already visible blurring between professionals and amateurs in journalism, design and software); or the fact that consumers don't always know what they want (even though they deﬁnitely know what kind of service they need, or what constitutes a good experience!). We're also not saying that everything and anything will be suitable for full blown CUSTOMER-MADE strategies. But the eclectic examples above should inspire you to ﬁnd at least one or two ways to apply this trend to your own business.

So, to get started, what's stopping you from setting up your own ipodlounge.com, hiltonlobby.com, virgincabin.com, ingcounter.com, saabbackseat.com, safewaysaisles.com or vodafoneconnection.com, and inviting your customers to engage in CUSTOMER-MADE goods, services and experiences? Are you ready to open up (even as an experiment) one strategy meeting, one design process, one brainstorming session to the millions of consumers who may have an expert opinion, suggestion, new business idea and so on, simply because they're your avid users, and, in the best case, true fans?

Oh, and if fear of a deluge of complaints and requests is holding you back: rest assured the deluge is already happening, and that if YOU aren't listening to your smart, able customers, someone else deﬁnitely is!

Note: special thanks to Michell Zappa! www.trendwatching.com 23 / 23