Five Characteristics of True Co-creation

This is the third and final installment of a three-part series on co-creation, a technique that is getting a lot of attention lately. This article focuses on what is required for an approach to truly be considered co-creation vs. other qualitative research.

Just jumping in now? Take a quick detour to read Part 1 or Part 2, which explain the defining characteristics of co-creation and the most common ways that the technique can help to solve brand challenges, respectively.

1. Consumers and brand stakeholders simultaneously collaborating – Most of the time this is an in-person group session, but can occur online as well. The critical component is that consumers and brand stakeholders are both involved, in real time, and that their feedback is gathered in an iterative and collaborative fashion. These can be apparel designers, R&D teams from CPG brands, restaurant design firms, automobile designers, the C-suite of a Fortune 50 company—imagine the possibilities. One of my favorite moments from a co-creation session was watching a customer sit next to the CEO of one of the major retailers in the world and explain her needs from his brand, uncensored.
2. Wide range of stimuli both written and graphic – Co-creation almost always leans heavily on stimuli as a means of making difficult to articulate ideas or metaphorical concepts easier to discuss. How the research team plans and selects the stimuli to be used is of critical importance. Every single image, word, claim, and phrase should have a specific purpose and reason for inclusion. They should be meaningfully incorporated into the discussion and subsequent activities so the entire team understands their relative appeal and the reasons behind it (or lack thereof). We generally recommend casting a very wide net and then allowing participants to gravitate towards what resonates. This is not to be confused, however, with including everything under the sun.    
3. Exploration of perceptions of value from all perspectives – By having the various stakeholders all present simultaneously, you have the unique ability to leverage everyone’s needs and interests real time. When designing a product, the ability to focus on the most compelling aspects and build those results in an optimized offering that better meets the needs of all.
4. Longer group format – It is also important to realize that this is not a tight, planned series of conversations that can happen in 90 minutes. We often recommend scheduling three hours for co-creation sessions to allow for deeper, more meaningful conversations and substantial interactive collaborative activities without making participants feel rushed. Remember, when pulling together a more divergent group, it can sometimes take longer for individuals to gel and begin communicating effectively.
5. Collaborative idea generation – Lastly, group collaging. Yes, I started by saying that collaging does not a co-creation make. But hands-on activities with manipulatives are an extremely effective way to move a concept along and make the intangible more tangible. Also, 3D multi-media collages are a great way to memorialize the ideas generated and clients often use them to socialize insights and serve as a springboard for further innovation internally.  

Co-creation is an extremely valuable technique that has been attracting a lot of attention (and rightly so). But every time someone misuses the term, or sells in traditional focus groups as co-creations, it diminishes the perceived value in the marketplace. As researchers, we should all be protective of the term and the approach to ensure it remains a useful technique and not a novelty term.