“Customer-Made” 1
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“CUSTOMER-MADE” 1. Definition and insights CUSTOMER-MADE: “The phenomenon of corporations creat- ing 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 cam- paigns 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 regis- tered 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 web- sites, 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 sugges- tions 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, in- cluding workshops, model building and a competition for cash- awards, appliances and more (click here for pictures of the win- ning 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 con- tributors. There's no harm in targeting relevant pockets of exper- tise 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.