What if you outsourced your creative to your customers?




Trendwatching ( http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/customer-made.htm ) has a great category called “customer made” and it is worth taking a look at how this fledgling marketing arena is heating up.



Here is the given definition: “The phenomenon of corporations creating 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.”

The idea is to include the customer – or even outsource to the customer – the important early ideation steps of a new ad or product.

While I am sure that the sweet spot between customer research and CRM is somehow placated by this idea, I tend to doubt that customers can be forward looking with their design. By necessity they are exposed to fewer alternatives, have less education about the realistic alternatives and seldom keep the core communication goals top-of-mind. Don't get me wrong, I am fond of the idea as an input to the creative process, I just question a non-expert's ability to solve intricate communication problems in an elegant fashion.