Author Archives: Johnathan Bonnell
Just over an hour ago, Gary V finished what was probably the best talk I have seen so far at SXSWi 2011. I have a bit of a bias towards rating Gary V’s talk, as I’ve read his previous book, Crush It, and I also watch his v-blogs from time-to-time. But to be honest, he hit on everything that makes for a good talk for me, as well as left us all in the room with a strong message on how we can re-think customer experiences and interactions.
What made it so good? Well, here’s a quick breakdown:
Passion = check, Multiple F bombs = check, A clear POV and strong case to back it up = check, Free schwag (see pencil in picture) = check
Greet everyone by name at the door and thank them for coming to the talk before it even begins = check, Captivate an entire room = check
Leave everyone in the room with the feeling that they have to go out and do something (sometimes better) = check
But I want to go back to his message for a quick second. Gary’s talk focused on what he’s calling the “Thank You” economy, or what’s also referred to as the “humanization of business”. It was about caring for your customers, thanking them for their business and valuing their relationship beyond the dollars and cents. I won’t be able to do Gary justice in describing his book, so I’ve put a link to it here.
By Johnathan Bonnell and Jason Theodore
In our last post, we discussed how technology has closed the gap between consumer needs and product creation. The result is the ability for consumers to be more deeply involved in the product ideation and creation process than ever before. But why does co-creation matter?
Why care about co-creation: ideas, free, and market leaders
1. There’s no shortage of ideas: co-creating provides a new avenue for consumers to share their ideas, and a new “idea stream” for producers to tap into. It can also serve as a live testing ground for ideas that come from within a company’s walls. Dell’s Idea Storm has received nearly 12,000 posted ideas and implemented 350, while P&G’s connect & develop program has influenced over 35% of their new products in market.
2. It’s in the “free”: People are using their personal time to interact with a brand, to have discussions with like-minded consumers about a brand, and the companies are only paying for the venue. In addition to the tremendous volume of ideas being submitted, the amount of discussion taking place within idea streams is just as large. In both of these scenarios, consumers are choosing to spend their own personal time interacting with a brand, and companies don’t have to spend millions on advertising to distract someone for (hopefully) 30 seconds of their attention. Some My Starbucks Ideas have received over 1000 comments and their site has had over 2 million visitors since November 2008.
3. Co-creation could lead to market leaders: Johann Fueller and Eric Von Hippel, from the MIT Sloan School of Management, recently put out a report titled Costless Creation of Strong Brands by User Communities: Implications for Producer-Owned Brands. Their focus was to understand the emergence of community brands (a group of people who share similar passions and form a group identity, logo and brand name to symbolize this common bond) and their impact on traditional commercial brands. Near the tail end of their study they posed a very important question “Are community brands and commercial brands antagonists or complements?” and then showed us the results from a hypothetical choice experiment: 78.2% of respondents preferred a co-developed and co-branded product. This blew any singularly produced manufacturer brand (15% preference) or community brand (1.9%) out of the water. The study showed that a community brand contributed authenticity, identity and high-use expertise which was complemented well by a commercial brand’s strong product development and production capabilities. Consumers and brands could potentially co-produce and co-brand a product that has significant market potential.
By Johnathan Bonnell & Jason Theodor
Any color you want–as long as it’s black
Henry Ford, the enigmatic father of mass production, once said, “[A] customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” This was the predominant sentiment among businesses in the early 1900s as assembly-line manufacturing emerged. Consumers accepted this one-size-fits-all mentality at first, because they could now afford things that had once been beyond their financial reach.
As consumers grew accustomed to this new normal, they began to express their opinions and reactions to these new products. “The ride is too bumpy,” or “The black seats are too hot,” were common complaints. But companies were very limited by their own manufacturing processes and had difficulty responding. They also weren’t used to the mentality of being told what to do. Companies were very comfortable with a top down approach, where they dictated consumer needs, take it or leave it. But the next one-hundred years would turn that attitude on its head.
If you don’t choose, you lose
Over time, the voice of the consumer was strengthened by easier and faster methods of communication. Manufacturing was evolving at a similar rate, creating ever more efficient and flexible processes. Competition began to emerge in every market, and to differentiate themselves from similar products companies began to offer the consumer something that had never been offered before: choice. And once they got used to having choices, there was no going back to just ‘black’.
