Simon Cowell and Research

I can’t say I’m a fan of the X factor but these programmes along with things like Strictly Come Dancing show the risk of completely divorcing our own intuition and experience from decision-making in favour of ‘trusting the market entirely’. 

To be marginally heretical, consumers don’t work in isolation, they don’t come up with decisions on their own but ‘need’ to be led – at least to a certain extent. Thats not to say ‘don’t listen to consumers’ but more be aware of the ‘Jedward effect’, people tend to go with the prevailing fashion, hence Jedward are the greatest thing since sliced bread even though when it comes to the medium run they may go the way of Michelle McManus.

Co-creation in its incarntion as listening and developing propositions from customer input risks ‘going the Jedward way’. Its not that you should accept consumer input its just that that’s exactly what it is ‘an input’ not an output.

Equally how input is measured is key.  OK so with X million telephone respondents you would have thought that just on raw numbers alone this is in some ways ‘statistically significant’ until you realise that most of those phoning are within a very limited demographic.