Where will your company’s next great idea come from? From your customers.

By Mike Waite, Emily Morris | July 1, 2007

Reading time: 8 minutes

Abstract

Collaborating with customers, through online communities, offers a new and exciting way to develop new product ideas. The authors present examples from Del Monte Foods and its research with pet owners and from a toy manufacturer and snack-food maker.

Research Topics:: Brainstorming/Idea Generation | Crowdsourcing | Product Development Research | Online Communities - MROC | Online Research | Qualitative Research
Industry/Market Focus:: Pet Foods/Supplies
Content Type: Research Methodology

Share Print

Reinventing innovation

Editor’s note: Mike Waite is vice president, panels and communities at MarketTools Inc., a San Francisco research firm. Emily Morris is director, panels and communities at MarketTools.

A famous quote, “Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” - attributed to Charles Duell, commissioner of the U.S. patent office in 1899 - has proven to be just a bit off the mark. Yet recent research does suggest that truly innovative ideas are harder to come by than ever.

Some would say it’s because the new era of the connected consumer lends itself more to group thinking than breakthrough ideas. We say it’s because companies aren’t yet tapping into the creative force of connected consumers. And that could be a huge missed opportunity. The new breed of borderless consumer communities holds enormous potential for new ideas and insights that will translate directly to profitable products and services. This article takes a closer look at innovation in the new era and examines how to harness the creative potential of the online community.

Essential to survival

Innovation is the biggest challenge most companies face. There is no question that innovation is essential to survival; the question is where the next big idea will come from. Increasingly, the answer to that question is…past innovations. Incremental improvement to existing concepts is becoming the focus of a larger percentage of innovation, as opposed to cutting-edge, swing-for-the-fences, genuinely big ideas. From the predominance of sequels and prequels at the movie theater to the swelling ranks of me-too products on shelves, the evidence of this trend is all around us. Figure 1, based on a recent McKinsey study of packaged goods companies, shows a 40 percent decline in truly innovative ideas relative to modest or incremental innovations over the past several years.

Predictably, as the rate of breakthrough innovation slows, the reward for truly innovative ideas grows. Figure 2, based on the same McKinsey study, shows that breakthrough innovations account for a far higher percentage of sales within a category than simple line extensions or incremental innovations.

Eliminating bad ideas

One of the key reasons our business culture tends to favor incremental improvement is that its processes focus more on eliminating bad ideas than generating good ones. The traditional flow goes something like this: brainstorming session, subjective vetting of ideas to get rid of obviously poor ideas, optimization of the best of the rest, and selection of final candidates for formal concept testing or development. The result, all too often, is the promotion of the “strongest weakling.” Far worse, many ideas with true potential are instantly dismissed because they appear too cutting-edge or risky. Others are simply not recognized as having potential when in fact they do.

Another key problem is that traditional methods are driven almost entirely by internal contributors. Companies limit themselves to ideas and concepts that spring from the minds of their own researchers, scientists or product development specialists. These companies are missing a rich source of innovation: customers, end users and the growing legions of connected consumers that comprise online communities. This new generation of consumers represents an opportunity to broadly expand the volume, quality and breakthrough potential of new ideas.

And let’s be clear: the occasional customer satisfaction survey or ethnographic study is not likely to produce breakthrough ideas; simply asking people what they want and need isn’t always the best approach either. What’s needed is high-quality interaction with the new generation of connected consumers - tapping into their natural conversations as they discuss their opinions and problems and collaborating with them about new solutions.

Collaborative capabilities

Connected consumers and online communities are not new phenomena, but recent advances in computing and communications have redefined the nature of their connectedness and their collaborative capabilities. The blogosphere, the wireless Web and the ubiquity of handheld network devices all create new opportunities for sharing information and ideas. Equally important, they give consumers something that has always been in the corporate purview until now: control.

Connected consumers insist on control over their experiences and the things they spend money on. They’ve bypassed brokers, bank tellers and broadcasts. And they will not be marketed to in traditional ways. They zap commercials, auto-delete unwanted e-mail and use caller ID and no-call lists to screen out telemarketers. They have declared to the world that they want things on their own terms, when they want it, wherever they are.

The unprecedented power of the connected consumer is not necessarily a threat to marketers. In fact it represents a tremendous opportunity because the new communications capabilities also unleash new sources of great ideas and creativity, and they can help marketers gain a deeper understanding of key consumer groups.

For example, leading-edge consumer products companies are now experimenting with managed online communities. They are creating special-interest Web sites where people with common interests, hobbies or passions can come together and exchange opinions, views, thoughts and ideas about a specific topic - such as pets or toddlers or kayaking - and they are monitoring the natural conversations and getting closer to the truth about what’s on the minds of key target consumer groups.

These companies are discovering that consumers are not only willing but anxious to join, to participate and to contribute. And they’re not just contributing an answer to a survey question or an exchange with an interviewer in a focus group. They’re part of a continuous, ongoing dialog that morphs - like the community itself - as newcomers join the conversation and contribute their own opinions and ideas.

Rants and rambles?

It’s a fair question: are these connected communities really a source for breakthrough ideas, or are they simply repositories for rants and rambles? A Fortune 500 maker of toys and games recently asked a privately-managed community of moms for specific ideas on new products and received a landslide of concepts - many of them worthy of formal testing and development. The online community went beyond the concepting stage; moms helped pick which ideas were best and provided specifics about when, where and why they’d buy them, helping in the development of a marketing plan and creative marketing ideas. “It wasn’t our ideas and their feedback; it wasn’t their ideas and our feedback; it was true co-creation,” said a marketing executive at the company.

Del Monte Foods Co. wanted to know what pet owners want for their pets in order to enhance product development for certain popular pet food and snack brands including Kibbles ‘n’ Bits and Milk-Bone. So the company’s pet products division created a private, managed online community where dog owners can share ideas about anything relating to dogs - from training tips to the best way to load a big dog into a small car. “The online community is a flexible research environment,” says Gala Amoroso, a research executive at Del Monte Foods. “Online communities give us continuous interaction rather than one-off, point-in-time studies. That is critical in getting us closer to our customers and what they really think.”

For example, Del Monte’s community research allowed it to see a need among pet owners for products that allowed them to travel better with their pets. Amoroso acknowledges the other benefit of working with a community of voices is that Del Monte can mirror the language that consumers use when talking about products in future product marketing campaigns.

Another marketing executive, from a Fortune 100 snack food company that uses online communities for innovation, said in a recent panel discussion, “The online community is the key to getting past the era where the corporation is the executioner of ideas. We’re moving into an era where the company can be a catalyst for creative thinking and a facilitator, drawing on great ideas wherever they come from and making them better - turning them into products that match consumer tastes and preferences precisely.”

Actively engaged

If you decide to explore using online communities for market research, here are three approaches to consider. Keep in mind that whichever approach you take, it is important to keep participants actively engaged and focused on providing relevant, useful input.

Build your own focused online consumer community. As mentioned earlier, Del Monte Foods’ Pet Products Division created an online community for dog owners to share ideas about dogs. The company monitors the site and stirs discussion but does not attempt to control participation, promote products or pay participants for their input. Through a site moderator, the company participates in the continuous dialog the site provides with consumers, listening in on the natural conversations that may lead to product ideas, gathering opinions about ideas that might appeal to a mass market, and co-creating with participants. For example, Del Monte Foods might offer a suggestion about a new product and invite people to make suggestions for improvements or refinements or alternative ideas. These focused consumer communities can be branded or unbranded, open or closed to the public - depending on your needs.
Build an enterprise-wide corporate online community. One Fortune 100 snack food company has begun experimenting with an online community of thousands of employees. The employees can anonymously contribute ideas and provide feedback on others’ ideas. Everyone from senior executives to new hires on the loading docks has equal access to this network of ideas and is on equal footing to share thoughts and opinions. The employees own the community; it lives and breathes on its own. But it is actively monitored to help the company stay in tune with new trends and identify new ideas with commercial potential.
Participate in an existing online consumer community. Some companies may not need their own online community, but still want to tap into consumers’ online conversations. Partnering with an existing online community lets companies learn from and collaborate with these connected consumers. By interacting with an online community during the idea creation process, companies don’t have to come up with ideas and then test them with consumers; they get the consumers to generate the ideas and flesh out the best ones.

Richer venue

By using online communities to tap into the wisdom of connected consumers, companies can have a richer venue in which to discover truly innovative ideas or freshen up old ideas with new perspectives. The key is in enlisting consumers to help with this process of co-creation in an open forum where they can easily participate how they want and when they want.