The Royal Society of Arts was a grand venue for what felt like an eye-opening Co-creation Hub event on something that, really, we all should know. In fact, throughout the talk, I began to feel slightly unnerved by the accuracy of a theory that I’d known so well through growing up – although back then it had no fancy name. I wanted Adidas popper trousers and Kickers shoes because they were what the cool kids wore. They would make me popular.
As Mark Earls, author of ‘The Herd’, broke the news that our decisions aren’t based on what we, ourselves, believe in or agree with, but by that of influencers – like our friends or other respected sources – it got me thinking about some decisions I’ve made recently and how they may have been based on my social circle. Did I break up with my boyfriend because my friends were all becoming single? Did I move to a rough area because my friends were nearby? Am I thinking about my next holiday destination based on the stories I’ve been told? Probably, yes. Definitely, I’m sure Mark would say.
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The event
Last week, there was a very enjoyable and insightful gathering for the first London Co-Creation Hub drinks evening (see each member here: Face Group, Farm, Opticom and thrudigital). After several short presentations, which are embedded below, a conversation emerged between several brands and agencies.
The key points of debate were:
- Isn’t openness opposed to the commercial aims of companies?
- How does this affect a research/IP-driven company, who is by necessity private?
- Where is the line between public and private, and does it move?
- Does defining the purpose of engagement bring greater meaning to open conversation with customers?
Below the next section of rambling (please skip if time is short), I want to answer these questions with an easy-to-use but research-driven framework. (And for even more time-constrained people, just look at these summaries: left & right).
Our general opinion is that
- Openness wins. And companies will continue to open up. Social-media enabled co-creation is a key facilitator of this.
- A campaign-based approach to marketing must move to an ongoing conversation-based approach, to facilitate the new expectations of consumers and capitalise on the deepness of interaction that this engenders.
Having said that, I do understand that some organisations have elements of their business that WILL NOT open up, or become subject to pubic opinion. And that is completely acceptable. As Ian Green from No. 10 Downing Street pointed out last night, he tweets and blogs all day long about the activities of the Prime Minister, but there is a clear expectation. Although he will post as the human face of No. 10, with details of Ministerial engagements and duties, he will not be broadcasting details of conversations, especially sensitive ones.
Brands are coming (by necessity) to this same realisation. Openness wins, BUT it doesn’t mean that you have to open everything to the public.
As emerged from further discussion, Apple is a great example of a company that is HIGHLY secretive about one aspect of its research and development (the hardware), yet very open about another (anyone can build an application for their hardware). So, as a brand, it is vital to identify the most suitable and effective areas for openness and social media engagement.
Neilsen’s research into social media opportunities for enterprise (2009) identified 5 areas of an organisation that will benefit most from social media-enabled implementation in 2010. There is no ‘one fix’ for every company. No one way of engaging that works for everyone. But I have NEVER yet found a company that cannot benefit in measurable ways from a social media engagement/co-creation strategy that operates in at least one (usually at least three) of the following business areas.
The good stuff
Customer Support
Probably the most obvious win for many brands and customer support is a huge cost line for product-driven business and even the most traditional manager pricks up his ears at the cost savings and service delivery improvements that can be achieved.
Social media is now an established channel for customer support. If you aren’t responding there, you can bet your brand reputation that others are. People love the immediacy and ease of sending off a tweet, writing a query on a forum, or googling for an answer to their product issue. The beauty about customer support systems that use social media platforms is that there is a powerful opportunity for crowd-sourcing, customer service issues. Allowing fans to solve other customer’s problems, give advice, and make recommendations for best courses of action might sound scary from a brand perspective. but in addition to reducing support costs and improving customer service, it can also build a much more approachable brand, with deeper and more meaningful customer relationships.
Insight & Research
One of the key points that I presented yesterday, was that the new media environment rewards (and perhaps will even require) companies to become more customer-centric. Understanding what your fans, general customer base, and the market as a whole want and need is vital for creating products and services that lead the market. By observing general trends beyond the specific remit of your role or position in the market, holistic and forward-looking strategies can be formed.
This goes far beyond the “focus group” approach that has been adopted in the past, although it doesn’t necessarily replace that. Distilling what the market is saying about your company and your competitors, over time, can give you superb (and statistically significant) insight into your competitive positioning and evolving brand perception. And because what the market is saying is now trackable and public, you can be sure that even if you are not listening and gaining insight from it, your competitors are!
Product Development
At the London Co-creation Hub, one of the key uses for co-creation (doing things with people, not at people) is for product or service development. Now, since this is the area that sparked debate last night, with several brands defending a disengaged process due to security and competition concerns, let’s unpack the issues.
Yes, many elements of product research and development must be kept private, so that the company can build and maintain a competitive advantage. This is especially important in a world where unlicensed product copies can appear within days, from the very sophisticated factory operations in China and elsewhere. Firstly, no one is arguing that all R&D should be done in a goldfish-bowl with everyone looking on. However, as a point of interest, there are companies that have done this successfully, betting that the buy-in and loyalty that is built from an open product-development process will surpass the danger of other companies replicating (cue future blog post with a case study…).
Secondly, even when a brand’s core product research is private, there are always less sensitive areas that can be communicated and co-created. Perhaps the service element of the business needs work and could use customer engagement and conversation. Or incremental improvements to an existing product. Or a new approach to environmental packaging. Or new ways of using the product can be found. Et cetera.
Reputation Management
There are now an abundance of social media monitoring tools in the marketplace, and although creating lots of data might be all the rage now, creating insight is where the real value lies. There are robust technological approaches to monitoring conversations across the web, identifying those that are most influential, classifying them according to topics, geographies and other attributes, and analysing them for insight.
Conversations are happening all around the web, with or without you. Whether viewed from a crisis-management perspective, or from a more general public relations remit, it is vital that every brand is at least listening. In fact, research by Trendmonitor shows that the mere fact of demonstrating you are listening increases brand perception considerably, even if you never do anything with that insight!
Marketing
It is often the marketing department that experiments first with social media; seeing the buzz and the potential opportunity for reach, engagement, and even (that horrifically overused word) ‘viral’ promotion. The media and advertising industries are in upheaval, with brands realising that they can now speak to customers directly, as well as through media channels and advertising campaigns. This proximity of audience means that brands can build direct and deep customer relationships, if they are willing to spend the time to engage. So let’s touch on 3 ways to approach co-created marketing.
- Firstly, we have the opportunity for brands to engage fans in the actual creative process. What better way to ensure a message resonates with its audience, than by allowing the opinion leaders in that audience to float ideas and discuss the creative delivery? There are many brands already doing this, from crowd-sourcing ideas through virtual communities, through to actually commissioning and utilising videos produced by fans of the brand as advertisements on other channels.
- Beyond the idea generation and creative process, there are massive opportunities for cost-effective distribution, if fans are engaged with the campaign that is being delivered. Whether described as ‘friend recommendations’, ‘word-of-mouth’, or ‘social referrals’, enabling and empowering your customers to actually deliver the brand message brings true authenticity and weight to the conversation.
- And finally, an area which hasn’t been fully explored, but is just around the corner, is targeting and segmentation based on the customer’s social media footprint. Yes, customers can help create the campaigns, deliver the campaigns, but also decide to allow brand’s access to their profile data so that better and more relevant conversations can arise. Think it of eCRM 2.0. An easy way to start is by monitoring social media for an “intent to purchase”. Then engaging. Simples.
The obligatory call to action
If you are interested in finding out about any of the above, please do get in touch (or @cocreationhub on Twitter). Between the partners of the London Co-Creation Hub, we have experience in addressing each of the above business areas.
Slides from the event
Co-Creation, Homepage•
on June 29th, 2010•
There was almost unanimous agreement at the FS Forum in St Paul De Vence over the challenges facing the Financial Services Industry. They were described in four words: trust, reputation, transparency and engagement. There was also serious acknowledgement that the consumer has a vital role in helping the major brands from the industry to meet these challenges. There was a sense too amongst some of the delegates that in the words of Simon Clift the recent CMO of Unilever they felt “behind the consumer” and that this is a very uncomfortable place for a brand or organisation to be.
Changing Consumer Landscape
This is to be expected as the consumer landscape is changing fast. It is common knowledge that the advent of Web 2.0 has given consumers the confidence and the ability to take more control of the relationship they have with brands. It has given rise to the term “empowered consumers”, a new breed of customer who have a strong belief not just in their own voice but also in their own creativity, ideas and self-expression. It is no longer about what your brand does to the consumer but what consumers are doing to and with your brand.
Impact on Financial Services Industry
This trend manifests itself in the Financial Services Sector in a number of ways. The first is that the empowered consumer of today sees openness as key to building trust and accountability with the brands they engage with. This is critical for banking brands where events from the last two years have seen trust and fairness eroded. This has been picked up by the FSA’s ‘fairness’ objectives where banks are now being tasked to provide fair products and deal with customers in a fair way. Secondly there is a drive to streamline consumer interactions and make customers lives easier by combining products. The social web will have a big impact on financial services marketing, sales and business communication processes with demand from consumers for new service designs and interfaces. This will enable consumers to draw upon a wider base of advice from places such as twitter, opinion aggregators and financial forums and will lead to real time customer service becoming a top differentiator. And finally customers are moving away from conventional advice channels (IFAs, banks) and moving more towards peer advice because social media has made this possible in ways that were not there before.
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There has been a lot of buzz in the twittersphere around infographics over the past year and i wanted to share some thoughts on how the research industry can make the most of this growing visual language.
The democratisation of data
The purpose of the information graphic is to give us all a new way of helping people understand concepts, ideas and data through art. Our brains are wired for pictures, rather than than text and data, which means that infographics enable more people to engage with complex issues such as social trends, product concepts and social media research findings. read more
Co-Creation, Homepage•
on April 27th, 2010•
Last Sunday I was scheduled to fly from Damascus (Syria) to London. An easy 6-hour plane ride with a simple transfer in Istanbul turned into a very complicated journey. As a result of the volcanic ash cloud it took me 3 days to get home. I had to travel via Istanbul-Rome-Milan-Lausanne-Paris-Calais-Dover using 1 plane, 4 trains, 1 car, 2 taxis, 1 ferry, 1 bus, 2 tubes and a lot of long walks. Only by working together with other people was I able to reach London. My successful journey home was the result of collaborating and co-creation.
On arrival, at Istanbul airport Turkish airlines was in chaos. Later I found, this was also the case for the Italians at Rome Fiumicino airport. There was no information, no signs, no water or food, only very long queues. Speaking to local staff was confusing rather than helpful. The only thing brilliantly clear was that every flight was cancelled and all international forms of transport were sold out for the next couple of days.
As I tried to move on amongst this confusion I started to realise that something interesting was happening out of this disaster; a simple journey was turning into a voyage of discovery. As people’s travel plans were severely disrupted, travellers who would normally ignore each other, started to work together. They shared stories and exchanged information. As a result of the chaos, a community of travellers began the quest in trying to figure out a way to get home. The community fed information through social media. Facebook pages and Twitter tags sprang up to inform people and help them find alternative transportation, even supportive tips on where to find couches to sleep on. read more
Co-Creation, Homepage•
on March 30th, 2010•
In her paper about the World of Warcraft and Co-Creation Myriam Davidovici-Nora explains that Blizzard’s success lays in the combination of never-ending game-play, a high level of competition and the hyper-personalisation accessed through online add-ons.
However, Blizzard’s unique model is hardly suitable for other businesses– Can you imagine EA distributing “zombie kits” for Left 4 Dead?
This conundrum leaves us with a burning question: what is the best practice to handle / entice a group’s creativity in the online environment?
The Tool is the Tip of the Iceberg
Liz Sanders, a pioneer in the use of participatory research methods for the design of products, systems, services and spaces, addressed this topic when speaking at the Copenhagen Co’Creation 2010 Summit and Seminar. She explained that tools are the tip of the iceberg: they only become effective if applied with the right mindset and the right methods/methodologies. read more
London is one of the biggest cities in the world; it is a massive player in the world’s finance, fashion, business, party, retail and social media industries. It’s a place where dreams can be made and literally anything can happen! But even though London has an unlistable amount of good points and amazing opportunities, it’s not perfect.
So on 24 February 2010, to compliment the launch of The Hub, we also unveiled a new initiative called ‘Co-Create London’. This is aimed at addressing the Capital’s main issues and annoyances by listening to the people who know the City best – the general public. Whether they’ve lived In London their whole life or just passed through, Co-Create London is asking people to answer a very simple question – ‘What Would You Do To make London A Better Place?’.
In just 3 weeks we’ve had loads of buzz worldwide; people have approached us from other countries asking about rolling it out in their cities and we have been covered across all the London blogs.
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Co-Creation•
on March 9th, 2010•
Farm was co-creating advertising 10 years ago without even knowing it. We’re not suggesting we were trailblazing by design – we’d never heard of the term ‘Co-creation’ and this was way before Web 2.0 or the concept of Social Media had arrived.
All we set out to do was solve our clients’ problems in the most effective way. And when we look back to 1999 when we helped launch smile.co.uk – the UK’s first internet bank we seemed to stumble across the seeds of the co-creation philosophy.
Let’s rewind 12 years. We had been involved in the naming of the new internet bank from the Co-operative Bank. And we felt that a bank named smile.co.uk needed a new kind of ‘brand voice’.
Smile.co.uk represented the Co-operative Movement for the internet generation and we felt it was important to stay true to the values of the Caring, Sharing Co-op so we created ‘The Smile Generation’ – a community of people who shared nuggets of wisdom for the good of the collective. Sounds deep. But in reality, it was a whole load of fun.
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