As online market research suppliers, we wish all brands needed us to perform co-creation ideation with consumers, but when they can do it effectively on their own, we all learn something.

1. Lauren Coartney
Director of Community Services
Klcommunications.com
September 26, 2014
KL Communications
“When Brands don’t Need Co-creation
Suppliers”

2. Suppliers are trying to get the
Co-Creation Message out
• KL Communications is an online research supplier, and if you’re
reading this, there’s a good chance you are too. As we’re trying to
proselytize the benefits of consumer co-creation to the masses
overall—while bringing it to our clients with a unique process and
platform we (naturally) believe is superior—it is both frustrating and
extremely satisfying to see brands co-creating directly with
consumers.

3. Some Brands have Heeded
the Call—without us
• Every month I turn to Google to scope out the competition; I’m
looking to see what firms similar to ours are up to, but I can’t help
but notice some of the better examples of the big guys going it alone
with consumer insight communities.

4. • First, there’s the BMW Group Co-creation Lab. BMW’s lab really fires
on all four cylinders in that it offers an organic community for
enthusiasts, invites them to contribute original ideas, and asks them
to evaluate concepts already in the making—all in a well-thought-out
online interface with gamification elements.
• Completed projects include co-creating concepts for better interior
customization, which yielded a color-matching camera so you can
match your car’s interior to your shoes (or anything you like), and
right now they’re looking at ways to improve trunks, or the “luggage
compartment” as they call it, either because they’re European or
because BMW really wants to know what people with baggage
think.
BMW Group’s Lab Churning out
Co-created Features

5. Fuji Xerox Homing on Consumer
Frustrations
5
• Do you remember the printer scene from the movie Office Space?
You know, the one where they put the printer out to pasture in epic
form after being unable to troubleshoot a “PC Load Letter” error
message? Mike Judge was going for hyperbole but it’s funny
precisely because there’s a grain of truth there. The folks at the Fuji
Xerox R&D Square Co-creation Lab would gamely call the characters’
frustration “finding the seeds that will grow into solutions” and
troubleshoot at their on-site lab.

6. Troubleshooting Adoption of Digital
Learning Management System
6
• In one project, university professors were not utilizing their school’s
digital system for administering and collecting assignments. When
Fuji Xerox brought them in to the lab with their own R&D engineers,
they learned that many still preferred issuing paper tests. They then
worked with the professors to come up with a solution to better
integrate paper media with the online grade-tracking concept.
• The proprietary learning management system Fuji Xerox created as a
result recognized student handwriting on scanned paper tests and
automatically registered the scores in the online system. Students
could then log in and view their grades, as well as their tests as
electronic documents.
• Normally, I wouldn’t call accommodating paper in an online system
an improvement, but Fuji Xerox specifically sought to overcome an
adoption problem and they got to the heart of the matter and
creatively increased utilization using co-creation.

7. No matter how it’s done, Co-
creation is good for all
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• Consumer co-creation allows customers to feel heard by the brands
they use and like, and lets companies create products and services
that actually resonate with them. And when co-creation is achieved
within the context of a market research online community (MROC),
organizations reap the additional benefits of cost-savings, around-
the-clock availability to participants, and quick-turnaround consumer
insights. While I wish these guys were doing it with us, I’m happier
still to see them doing it at all.

8. For more information on KLC’s CrowdWeaving solution,
visit klcommunications.com
732-224-9991