Co-create with Customers

An increasingly popular route to innovation is co-creating with customers. Threadless is a fashion company that's had great success asking people to upload T-shirt designs that site visitors then rate each week. Winning submissions get printed in limited editions, and the creators are rewarded with cash and site credits. The prizes aren't going to make anyone rich, except maybe Threadless, which can freely reprint successful designs but it does create opportunities. When the company's founders needed to hire a graphic artist, they didn't have to look far. Ross Zietz, a 24-year-old from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had won eight weekly contests. "They saw what I was capable of through my work for the competitions," says Zietz, who had also been approached to design T-shirts by others who had seen his Threadless portfolio.

Converse, a division of Nike, has received more than 1,500 video submissions when it invited consumers to send in 24-second shorts inspired by Chuck Taylor shoes and the Converse brand. It has used 40 of the videos as TV spots, rewarding the creators with $10,000 each. Doritos invited consumers to create a 30-second commercial to sell Doritos. Online consumer voting decided the winner which was shown duing the Super Bowl.

Companies are exploiting the opportunities presented by the creative minds of their customers. For example, to celebrate its 150th anniversary, Timex conducted a global design competition: Timex2154: The Future of Time. Designers from 72 countries explored the future of personal and portable timekeeping and sent in 640 surprisingly creative entries. In the past, customers have been limited to communicating their wants and needs in surveys and focus groups; today, brands deploy existing technologies to map their customer's imagination. Brands no longer view consumers as targets with a wallet, but as co-creators of exciting and profitable solutions.

Why not throw down a challenge to your customers to help design your next range of products or services? Set a competition and reward the most imaginative ideas. Use internet, video, chat room or other technologies to allow your clients to express themselves.

Paul Sloane writes and speaks on Innovation.

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