By Martin Schreier, Hidehiko Nishikawa, Christoph Fuchs & Susumu Ogawa
Companies are using crowdsourcing to identify promising ideas that they can translate into winning new products. Our research high-lights the promise of this trend: At the Japanese consumer goods firm Muji, we found that crowdsourced products were among the company’s best sellers.
However, we noticed that firms using crowdsourcing didn’t talk much about it. That seemed like a missed marketing opportunity. After all, people perceive organic food as tastier if they know it’s organic, and handmade products become particularly attractive if we know they’re handmade. Italian pasta and French wine will be perceived as higher quality if the product’s country of origin is revealed to consumers.
We found that labeling new crowdsourced products as such—that is, marketing the product as “customer-ideated” at the point of purchase—increased the product’s market performance by up to 20 percent.
What makes this cue sell so well? A series of studies revealed that consumers perceive customer-ideated products to be based on ideas that address their needs more effectively. A product appears to be of higher quality if marketed as customer-ideated. Imagine shopping for a lunch box for your child and seeing Yumbox marketed as “made by moms.” Or consider Red Chili, a climbing-shoes brand created by a user-entrepreneur who prominently uses the slogan “Only Climbers Know What Climbers Need” on his web site.
If you respond to these cues like our study participants did, you likely will conclude that something ideated by users will fit your needs.
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Martin Schreier is the head of the Institute for Marketing Management at Vienna University of Economics and Business. Hidehiko Nishikawa is a professor of marketing at Hosei University. Christoph Fuchs is a professor of marketing at the Technical University of Munich and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Susumu Ogawa is a professor of marketing and innovation at Kobe University.