This insight,
written by Bryan Urbick, explores the grounds in which consumers’ creativity can
really help to produce innovation in design.
I can
still hear the voices, trying to persuade us against our idea.
In the
mid-1990s when we first decided to progress with some new research methods we
had developed, tested and refined, we had a few pushbacks. Stated simply, the
methods involved working with consumers in the same way that teams develop new
ideas – brainstorming, creative techniques to help people think out-of-the-box
and utilization of various stimuli to help drive the creative process.
Of
course the process was designed to ensure engagement and facilitated in a way
that maintained focus on the project objectives. The crux of the objections and
negative comments were based on the belief that consumers are not creative.
Our
position then, as it is now, is that no one is creative when not in an
environment conducive to creativity. The opposite is also true – anyone can be
creative when the context is right.
Interestingly,
the creative process was (and still is) a research tool we use to uncover
opportunity areas. By evaluating new consumer ideas based on the prevalent
themes, a picture of unmet needs emerges – and even if the consumer-created
ideas are not pursued, the unmet needs can be clearly defined, with ways to
address them clearly plotted out. The fact that by doing this style of research
we were able to help facilitate consumers creating usable ideas was merely a
by-product of the process.
Now,
of course, consumer creativity is not a groundbreaking thought. Consumers, who
were once deemed the last people a company would turn to for innovative ideas,
are now often at the center of it all. Boundaries have blurred, hierarchies are
flattening and at times it appears that everyone can be consumers, researchers,
innovators and producers – all rolled into one.
I
notice this much more these days when conducting qualitative research projects,
from the more traditional focus groups to many of our non-traditional methods.
It seems as if consumer respondents feel more ownership and genuinely try to
help companies develop new ideas to solve their problems.
It
wasn’t that long ago (1909 to be precise) that American farmers were lobbying
car manufacturers for an automobile with detachable backseats. It took about 10
more years for Detroit to come up with the pickup truck. One can imagine what
the car makers’ response might have been: “These farmers … what would they
know?”
“How
shortsighted! How narrow-minded!” you might say. And yet this attitude from the
early 1900s is not that dissimilar from those naysayers just 15 years ago who
felt the need to tell us that “consumers aren’t creative” when we presented our
research methods.
Why is
this? I believe it is primarily driven by two factors: 1) there is a desire
that those hired to create new ideas maintain their worth; and 2) they haven’t
seen the context in which a typical group of consumers can actually create
anything of interest.
I am thankful,
though, that more and more marketers and manufacturers leap with joy when new
and obviously very necessary design innovation is suggested by consumers – and
many take note and pursue those ideas. Open innovation schemes are becoming
more prevalent and ideas are accepted from many sources, including consumers.
It’s
about time that we acknowledge that consumers can be creative and allow
ourselves to tap into the rich resource of consumer experience to innovate our
products and services.
By Bryan Urbick
Bryan Urbick is founder and chairman of Consumer Knowledge Centre, a London
research firm.
This comment was originally published by Quirk’s Marketing Research Review in
November 3, 2011 at 18:21.
