Co-creation ‘cannot replace traditional MR'

UK-- Day two of Research 2009 kicked off with a look at co-creation and its implications for the industry.

The London College of Fashion's senior marketing lecturer Julia Wolny explained that co-creation was not such a new concept in the fashion world.

“Not so long ago,” she said, “all consumers were involved in co-designing their own clothes and it is still common practice in developing economies.”

However, the internet has led to a new phase in consumer involvement and consumers can no longer be viewed as “passive recipients”, said Wolny.

Next up was Sheila Keegan, a partner at business consultancy Campbell Keegan, who said she was “worried” by the “evangelical approach to co-creation that rejects traditional research”.

She argued that there is room in the industry for both co-creation and more traditional research techniques. “We need to turn the ‘either/or' mentality on its head,” she said, “Co-creation is not ‘the answer'. It works some of the time for some people, and we lose our [research] expertise at our peril.”

Keegan said the use of groups in co-creation “encourages stereotypes” and “blocks out information that challenges the group's thinking”.

However author Charles Leadbeater, who gave the morning's keynote address, was quick to disagree with Keegan, and one member of the audience said her comments on group thinking were “doing research a disservice”.

Author: James Verrinder