John Bell On Co-Creation & Engagement

Johh Bell at Ogilvy's 360 Degree Digital Influence practice (who Pete Blackshaw interviewed here) commented and pointed us to his recent post:

Co-creation is the process of inviting your customers in to help create products and services. Interestingly, there has been some discussion about the meaning behind the term "engagement" in relation to companies getting involved in social media. Some say the term is meaningless and that users/consumers/peopel don't want to get involved with companies. I don't buy that.

I believe that co-creation is the ultimate form of customer engagement. Inviting the customer or constituent in to help make a product or make a service better allows you to achieve three things:

• Involve your customer in the brand at an "ownership" level
• Introduce innovation to your company from the outside-in
• Prove internally and externally that you really value your fans/customers and are willing to walk-the-walk of openness (yes, it takes more that a co-creation "stunt" but it's a start.

I posted before on 3 kinds of co-creation:

1. Co-creation of marketing: inviting customers in to creat ads or marketing materials
2. Co-creation of brand: that is like saying a dog wags his tail as brands are defined, ultimately, by the customer
3. Co-creation of products and services: actually asking customers to help create the next "something"

John then offers a nice roundup of co-creation in practice.