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Co-creation communication A research on the appreciation and willingness of Dutch consumers for co-creation communication. September 2007 By: Dominique de Thouars (0356387) Master Thesis Communicationstudies University of Utrecht Supervisors: Dr. J. D. ten Thije Drs. J. Evertse Utrecht University Dhr. Antonie van Schendel TBWA\Brand Experience Company 0 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have helped me during the creation of this thesis. Without the help of these people I could never have managed to succeed in producing this thesis. First of all, I would like to thank my mentor Dr. Jan ten Thije from the University of Utrecht, who has always encouraged me to follow my own path, both during my studies as well as in the choice of the topic of my thesis. He also helped me a lot during the writing of my thesis, and I could always count on him when I had questions. Second, I would like to thank Drs. Judith Evertse for supporting me during the times I was struggling with SPSS, and for shedding a bit of light on the more obscure areas of this program. I would like to thank Mr. Antonie van Schendel for giving me the chance to gain experience at TBWA\Brand Experience Company and for helping me to find my thesis subject. The support he gave me with the execution of the quantitative research and by offering me the chance to tap into his extensive network to contact people for my qualitative research was invaluable. I can only hope that, by presenting the results of this research to TBWA\Brand Experience Company, I have given back (at least) a fraction of the support and knowledge they provided me with throughout the past year. Furthermore, I would like to thank all my colleagues at TBWA\Brand Experience Company for their patience and understanding when deadlines were closing in rapidly on me (and them!), especially Janet den Butter for always being flexible and helpful. I would like to thank the University of Utrecht and especially Bureau Aboard for offering me the chance to study in the USA and to gain meaningful knowledge on the concept of co-creation and advertising. Finally, I want to thank my family and especially my brother Rolf and my sister-in-law Gail on whom I could always count to help me with language issues, and for being there at the very end to help me finish this paper and ‘crossing the t’s’, even while living abroad. 1 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars With the help of all these people, I was able to complete this research in what I continue to see as an exciting new and interesting field in the world of external communication. I can only hope that you, as a reader, will also enjoy and be tempted by the phenomenon of co-creation communication while reading my thesis. Utrecht, September 2007 2 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Summary In the following I will present a quantitative research paper that is based on the evaluation of the extent to which people appreciate co-creation communication as well as their willingness to participate in the co-creation communication process. Co-creation communication is the process of involving consumers in the external communication process with the help of three steps. The first step is bringing the message to them. The second step is letting the consumers respond followed by the third step in which this input is used to design the final external communication practice. Next to the quantitative research, a qualitative research will be presented which contains the discussion of an unsuccessful and a successful campaign. In addition, the opinion of marketing managers and senior managers on the topic of co-creation communication will be presented in order to shed some more light on some of the more notable results from the quantitative research. Co-creation is still a hardly touched area. The concept has been scientifically imbedded, but it is not clear if the consumer really wants to be reached with cocreation. This paper is intended as a first careful step in order to determine what the consumer thinks about ‘co-creation communication’. The key question of this research is therefore: ‘To what extend do people appreciate co-creation communication and are they willing to participate?’ To determine if consumers want to take part in the co-creation communication process, we first define what ‘co-creation communication’ is, starting by sketching the history of social changes and the role of communication with reference to the theories of Cornelis (1988) and Thijssen (2004). Then we explore the origin of the word ‘experience economy’ with the help of Pine and Gillmore (1999). This is followed by the definition of the concept and principles of co-creation itself and a discussion of co-creation as a tool in external communication with reference to the theory of Prahalad & Ramaswamy (2004). Finally, we touch on the importance of media choice within the context of the three steps of co-creation that were used in the definition of co-creation communication. The results from the online quantitative questionnaire are gathered from a survey involving 305 participants that formed a representative sample of the Dutch 3 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars population. The result of the quantitative research shows that people appreciate cocreation with a majority being open to the concept. However, most of them are not sure if they are willing to participate. This willingness to participate differs with respect to the chosen media in every step, the product category and the age of the consumer. The qualitative research shows that besides the factors age, product category and media there are also some other important factors, such as the level of control, environment and bonding with a brand, which influence the success of the cocreation campaign. The remarkable results obtained in the quantitative part are also explained with these factors. 4 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Table of contents 1. Introduction 9 2. Theoretical framework 11 2.1 Social changes and the role of communication 11 2.1.1 The three stability layers of Cornelis 12 2.1.2 Sociological perspective of the social context 14 2.2 Definition of ‘experience economy’ 2.2.1 The experience economy from the perspective of 16 16 the social rule system. 2.2.2 The experience economy from the perspective 18 of the communicative self directing. 2.3 Co-creation 19 2.4 The principles of co-creation 21 2.5 Eight styles of firm-customer knowledge co-creation 24 2.6 Co-creation definition for this paper: Co-creation 26 communication 2.7 Designing a communication message 28 2.7.1 The three steps of co-creation 30 2.7.2 Media choice 30 2.8 Co-creation Case: Celebrate Football 35 3. Problem Statement 42 3.1 Quantitative Research: Main Question and Sub– 42 questions 3.1.1 Main Question 42 3.1.2 Sub-questions 43 3.2 Hypothesis 43 3.3 Qualitative research 47 3.4 Relevance 48 4 Methodology 48 4.1 Introduction to the Methodology 48 4.2 Target Group, Participants and Research Method 49 5 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars 4.3 Justification of the questionnaire 5 Results 50 53 5.1 Appreciation 53 5.1.1 Overall appreciation 53 5.1.2 Overall appreciation and age 54 5.1.3 Overall appreciation: Sub-conclusion 54 5.2 Appreciation and Willingness of media in the three steps 55 of co-creation: step one 5.2.1 Appreciation of media used to approach people 55 5.2.2 Appreciation of media used to approach people per 57 age group 5.2.3 Appreciation of media used to approach people: 58 Sub-conclusion 5.3 Appreciation and Willingness of media in the three steps 59 of co-creation: step two 5.3.1 Willingness of people to respond through 59 different media 5.3.2 Willingness of people to respond through different 61 media per age group 5.3.3 Willingness of people to respond through 62 different media: Sub-conclusion 5.4 Appreciation and Willingness of media in the three steps 63 of co-creation: step three 5.4.1 Appreciation of media be used as external 63 communication message 5.4.2 Appreciation of media be used as external 65 communication message per age group 5.4.3 Appreciation of media be used as external 66 communication message: Sub-conclusion 5.5 Willingness to co-create with different product categories 5.5.1 Willingness to co-create with different product 6 67 70 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars categories per age group 5.5.2 Willingness to co-create with different product 71 categories: Sub-conclusion 5.6 Willingness and openness towards co-creation 72 5.6.1 Willingness 72 5.6.2 Openness towards co-creation and willingness to 73 participate 5.6.3 Openness towards co-creation per age group 74 5.6.4 Willingness to participate with co-creation per 75 age group 5.6.5 Willingness: Sub-conclusion 6 Qualitative research 75 76 6.1 Qualitative research: Part one 76 6.1.1 NIVEA Visage Young: A successful campaign 76 6.1.2 Chevy Tahoe: An unsuccessful campaign 87 6.2 Qualitative research: Part two 90 6.2.1 Enhances insight derived from in-depth interviews 90 6.2.2 First contact 91 6.2.3 Definition of co-creation 92 6.2.4 Opinion on co-creation 93 6.2.5 Conditions for co-creation 95 6.2.6 Factors that contribute towards the success or the 96 failure of a co-creation campaign 6.2.7 Ways of co-creation 98 6.2.8 Reasons for people to co-create 99 6.2.9 Co-creation and product category 100 6.2.10 Co-creation and age 101 6.2.11 Co-creation and media 102 6.2.12 The future of co-creation 103 7 Conclusion 104 7.1 Conclusion: Quantitative part 104 7 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars 7.2 Conclusion: Qualitative part 107 8 Discussion 109 9 Bibliography 114 10 Appendixes 119 10.1 Appendix A 119 10.2 Appendix B 128 8 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §1 Introduction ‘Experience marketing’, ‘Experience economy’, ‘The next generation’, ‘Communicative self direction’, ‘Co-creation’ - these are just a few of the terms that we nowadays hear in the world of business. Especially co-creation seems to be a new hype. Most companies want to ‘co-create’ with their customer, the number of external communication companies who recommend co-creation are abundant, and executive marketing managers are positive about it: Co-creation offers new possibilities for business and individuals. The question isn’t if this new development continues, but how quickly it continues. Joop Laan, www.XS4ALL.nl, 04-10-07 Some trends are worth tracking for years and years, especially if they represent a radically new definition of what constitutes value to consumers. From a business and innovation angle, we’d like to argue that co-creating with your customers is the most important one to watch. Reinier Everts, www.Trendwatching.com, 06-16-07 Co-creation is there, and it will not go away, it’s something of this time. Lourens Kwakman, Head of Marketing Sport 1, Interview TBWA/Brand Experience Company July 2007 Besides the business world, the scientific world is also interested in cocreation, and since co-creation cannot be univocally attributed to one specific field, there have been publications from marketing, economics and communications departments of universities from all around the world. Most of these publications have tried to define the concept ‘co-creation’ and how it originated. Clear definitions have been offered and imbedded in scientific theories. But why do consumers want to co-create? Trendwatching.com (04-17-07) states the following five reasons: Status: people love to be seen; they love to show off their creative skills and thinking. 9 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Bespoke lifestyle: something consumers have been personally involved in, should guarantee goods, services and experiences that are tailored to their needs. Cold hard cash: getting a well deserved reward or even a profit cut for helping a company develop ‘The Next Big Thing’ is irresistible for some people. Employment: it helps companies recruit their next in-house designer, guerrilla advertising agency or brilliant strategist. Fun and involvement: there's pleasure and satisfaction to be derived from making and creating for a company you like. But what are these criteria based upon? Not only in the world of marketing, but also in the scientific world there are assumptions (which have been) made with regard to the willingness and appreciation of consumers to co-create, like for example: “Consumers strive for co-creation” Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004 in Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 7 “It is the job of the company to build a co-creation relation and bond of trust with the consumer”1 Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 43 Although the opinion of professionals on co-creation is studied in Swenneker (2006), a number of questions still remain. How do we know if consumers really want to co-create with companies? Is this just a new business hype that has no foundation with respect to what consumers really want? And even if consumers are willing to invest their time in co-creation, how will they wish to be addressed? What kind of communication medium will they appreciate? Co-creation therefore still remains a hardly touched area. The concept has been scientifically imbedded, but it is not clear if consumers appreciate co-creation and if they are willing to participate in it. This thesis is intended as a first careful step in order to determine what the consumer thinks about ‘co-creation communication’. 1 Boswijk et al. 2005 are assuming with this statement that people actually want this co-creation relation. 10 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars This thesis will begin with a theoretical framework that explains the origin of co-creation and provides a clear definition of ‘co-creation communication’. After this theoretical framework, we will explain the methodology of the quantitative research and present the results obtained from this research. We will then report on the qualitative research, followed by a general conclusion of both researches. Finally, a discussion containing a critical reflection and some suggestions for further research will be presented. §2 Theoretical framework To find out if consumers want to take part in the process of co-creation communication, it is important to first define the terms ‘co-creation’ and ‘cocreation communication’. We begin by sketching the history of social changes and the role of communication in section 2.1. In section 2.2, the origin of the term ‘experience economy’ and how it evolved throughout the years is presented (concluding with an unambiguous definition of the term ‘experience economy’). In section 2.3, the concept of co-creation is discussed, while the principles of cocreation are explained in section 2.4. In section 2.5, co-creation as a tool in external communication is discussed, followed by the definition of co-creation communication in the context of this paper in section 2.6. In section 2.7, the practice of designing a communication message is discussed, along with the three steps of co-creation and the importance of media choice. Finally, in section 2.8, this co-creation communication definition is illustrated with the case ‘Celebrate Football’. §2.1 Social changes and the role of communication To understand the recent developments in commercial external communication, it is important to look at the socio-cultural developments that have been ongoing over the past decades; after all, communication always reflects the wants and needs of the respective environment, and these wants and needs react to changing socialcultural developments. First, we look at the stability layers formed by Cornelis 11 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars (1988), followed by the observation of the break-even points in the human existence as defined by Thijssen (2004). While discussing this last theory we will connect these two theories with each other with respect to the wants and needs of the people and the potential effects on communication. §2.1.1 The three stability layers of Cornelis Cornelis (1988) differentiates between three stability layers. In each layer we search for order and stability in our lives. The transmission from one layer to the other comes along with fundamental changes in the way we give meaning to life, and thus in the way we look at, and act in, the world of external communication (see Table 1). The last stability layer is of special interest for this thesis, but in order to understand the developments it is important to also discuss the other two layers. Communicative self direction Giving meaning and insight The creative person catharsis Social rule system Competence and social function The silent person To go astray Natural systems Sheltering and closing of the system The hidden person regression Table 1: The three stability layers of Cornelis (1988) The first layer, natural systems, represents the natural systems with the biological environment; people are hidden from the outer world and find shelter in their family and their own house. It’s a biologically determined environment, which is synoptic and to a great extent controllable (Boswijk et al. 2005). External 12 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars communication does not play a big role here since this environment is very sheltered; people live their own lives, controlled by their immediate environment. This first layer triggers the discoverer, who wants to go out into the outer world and who accomplishes this in the second layer. The second layer, the so-called social rule system, is a physical environment in which we are confronted with other people, and in which we have to find our own place. This leads to confrontations that can be accompanied by fear, anger and sorrow. It shows that it is necessary to establish rules and agreements, which leads to the implementation of the social rule system. In this second layer we search for stability through this social rule system. The layer develops its own dynamics, turning into a system that is externally imposed on people. After a certain period of time, it no longer represents the rules and agreements that the person initially needed in order to gain control over the world around him. However, if a person still sticks to this social rule system, he/she becomes a silent person, and the learning process stops. From then on the communication is only top down and oneway directed. In the third layer, the so-called layer of communicative self direction, communication plays a crucial role. In order to survive within a society, people have to reclaim their own learning process and look beyond the established rules. This requires the person to let go of the control he/she had, and begin to discover life again. By means of communication we discover what the options are and find a new balance that should be seen in a personal context. Values are formed when we have finished learning about a subject, and which form the basis of our actions. These values show us how to interact with each other and therefore this layer should also be seen in a socio-cultural context. Norms are developed from these values, but are fundamentally different from the rules that are externally enforced (as in layer two), given the fact that these rules are formed from within the person. In this layer we thus try to gain stability in our existence through communicative self direction, in which communication plays a crucial role (Boswijk et al 2005). The relevance of this theory will be explained further in section 2.2, but before doing so, we first have to discuss the sociological perspective of the social context in order to 13 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars understand the social developments and the connection between these and the stability layers of Cornelis (1988). §2.1.2 Sociological perspective of the social context Thijssen (2004), from a sociological perspective and in supplementation of Beck and Cowan (1996), presents a description of various social developments that influenced the society drastically. He described six break-even points in the history of mankind (Figure 1). In reference to this research, especially the last four of these six points are of specific interest and are therefore treated elaborately with the help of findings presented in Boswijk et al. (2005). Overcoming of challenges, adapting and building throughout the centuries Engagement revolution Experience revolution Turning point Full Commitment Values Network revolution Co-creation Values Services-& new media revolution Staging Experiences Industrial revolution Providing Services Agricultural revolution Making Services Value creation and Value distribution Growing Vegetation Catch Prey Living environment Nature Farm Cities Factories Office Chains Laboratories Everywhere Figure 1: The six break-even points in the history of mankind by Thijssen (2004) 14 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars After turning points one and two, where, respectively, the agricultural and industrial revolution takes place, we find turning point three, the services and new media revolution, where the increasing worldwide supply of goods and services plays an important role. The rise of the new media and the information and communication technology, and the imminent saturation of the markets, led to a blossoming of the service industry, and as a result, most jobs were completed from offices. These companies were, next to the family, a social network, that offered work, contacts and security. News from around the world is offered to the people in real-time and the influence of globalization is visible and tangible. The enhanced access to knowledge and online networks offers new opportunities for selfdevelopment. This self-development provides us with the capability of comparing suppliers of services and of informing ourselves in an appropriate manner. People are becoming more critical and external communication is becoming more important than it was before. The fourth break-even point, the network revolution, is the period in which we are still living now, and in which the shifting occurs from the social rule system towards the era of communicative self direction (as discussed above, Cornelis, 1988). People and companies are focused on cooperation in chain connections and networks in order to be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of customers and (to) focus on their own abilities. The labour market is flexible and people work with different companies during their lives. There has been a rapid increase of worldwide competition and combined with an ongoing trend in which goods and services are becoming more commodity-like (Pine & Gilmore, 1999). At the end of the twentieth century the rise of the experience economy and the thinking in terms of creating added value, distinctive capacity and innovation, started to emerge. People are working more and more in the creative sector and are less dependent on time and place due to the new technologies, like, for instance, wireless internet and the growing potential of the mobile phone. In the fifth break-even point, the experience revolution, the society is developing within the last stability layer, the era of communicative self direction (as discussed above, Cornelis, 1988). Individuals need to give the fulfilment of their 15 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars existence a direction of their own. The control from ‘the top’ is decreasing and people are constantly in search of a fresh meaning to their lives. These developments have consequences for companies and the way they have to communicate with their consumers. According to Boswijk et al. (2005), companies have to adapt to these changes. In modern organizations the managers and the employees have to create experiences in cooperation with the consumers, employees and partners (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). This will be discussed in more detail in section 3.2. The last break-even point is a prediction made by Boswijk et al. (2005) about the expected developments within the next 50 years. The revolution of complete engagement predicts that the production will be managed by the ‘low wages’ countries, and that the ‘high wages’ countries should focus on new added value and innovation, and should no longer try to compete on the price level. §2.2 Definition of ‘experience economy’ The ongoing transfer from the social rule system to the communicative self direction (Cornelis 1988) also has influence on the world of the experience economy. When the first scientific theories about the experience economy where proposed, the world was viewed from the perspective of the social rule system, whereas the most recent theories relating to this subject have been proposed from the perspective of the communicative self direction. To give a clear definition of the experience economy and to define what role co-creation can play, we need to look at this term from the beginning, from the perspective of the social rule system, and then shift our focus to the more recent theories proposed from the perspective of the communicative self direction. §2.2.1 The experience economy from the perspective of the social rule system. The pioneers in the area of the experience economy are the authors of the book ‘The Experience Economy’: Pine and Gilmore (1999). They point out, from their perspective in the social rule system, that as soon as a country reaches a certain 16 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars level of prosperity the attention shifts from goods and services to ‘experiences’. Due to the abundance and the continuous growth in the supply of material goods and services, a process is triggered in order to establish cost reduction and commoditizing. Competition is more about price, which forces companies to find new ways of bringing services and goods to the consumer and to redirect their traditional external communication habits to a whole new level. But how would you precisely classify the term experiences? Pine and Gilmore refer to experiences as the new source of value creation. Experiences are events in which people are addressed in a personal manner. An experience occurs when consumers are involved to such an extent that they are left with a permanent impression, meaning that the event is memorable and very personal (Calvelage & van Dijk, 2003). Pine and Gilmore define this further: ‘When a person buys a service he purchases a set of intangible activities carried out on his behalf. But when he buys an experience, he pays to spend time enjoying a series of memorable events that a company stages – as in a theatrical play- to engage him in a personal way.’ Pine and Gilmore, 1999, The progression of economic value in Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 2 O‘Sullivan (1998) also thinks that an experience is something that leaves a permanent impression, but only in combination with a high level of involvement. An experience is very personal: every individual has his/her own involvement level, and thus a different response. Schmitt (1999) defines experiences in a similar manner. According to him: ‘Experiences are private events that occur in response to some stimulation. Experiences involve the entire living being. They often result from direct observation and/or participation in events- whether they are real, dreamlike, or virtual.’ in Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 55 And: 17 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Experiences are usually not self-generated but induced (…) they have reference and intentionality.’ in Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 58 Now that we know what experiences are we need to define the term experience economy from the perspective of the social rule system. Experience economy is, according to Pine and Gilmore (1999): ‘A collective term for all kinds of activities which aim towards the potential customer, and it offers the appropriate product or service in a continuous ongoing context.’ in Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 14 Schmitt (1999) even defines experience economy as: ‘Products, communications, and marketing campaigns that dazzle people’s senses, touch their hearts, and stimulate their minds. They can relate to these and incorporate them into their lifestyles.’ in Boswijk et al. 2005, p. 15 §2.2.2 The experience economy from the perspective of the communicative self directing. According to the definitions above, the focus lies on the company, the initiative lies more with the supplier than with the consumer (Pine & Gilmore, 2002). The consumer is still seen as a passive target for the company (Boswijk et al. 2005). As mentioned above, this vision stems from the perspective of the social rule system: people are externally controlled, and companies try to control their consumers. But in the age of communicative self directing, people are continually learning to adapt to the rapid changes in society. Hence, the focus no longer lies on the company, but rather with the dialogue between the company and the consumer. People are no longer externally controlled, and this has implications on the way people think about the experience economy. In the context of communicative self-control the dialogue between the consumer and the company is possible because of communication. In this 18 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars communication process the consumer and the company are situated on an equal level. In this new vision people communicate with companies with regard to what they want to experience, while companies are listen and act according to these wishes: thereby, the person and the company cooperate with each other. The focus on the first generation of experiences, which are all about staging experience and which focus on experiences that display themselves as group attractions, retail concepts and events, is shifting towards the second generation: experience Realization experience surroundings from the supplier marketing as co-creation communication (Boswijk et al. 2005, see Figure 2). Level of Direction 100% Staging Cocreation Individual journey 0% 100% 0% Realization experience surrounding from by individual Figure 2: The two generations of experience marketing by Boswijk et al. 2005 Figure 2: Actors with the creation of experiences §2.3 Co-creation Co-creation, or ‘customer-made’ as it is sometimes called, is defined by Trendwatching.com as: ‘The phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with experienced and creative consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in (and rewarding them for) what 19 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed.’ www.trendwatching.com, 05-15-07 Since this definition was not founded by the scientific world, it is interesting to find out what the relevant scientific literature has to say about this term. We will now discuss the origin and definition of co-creation from the perspective of Boswijk et al. (2005) and Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004). According to Boswijk et al. (2005), the second generation of experience marketing takes the individual as a starting point and focuses on personal and socio-cultural values that are pursued by the individual. The focus shifts from the first generation (offers, marketing, sales and the staging of experiences) to the second generation where the focus lies on demands, easy access, relation management and the co-creation of meaningful experiences. The individual is the starting point: he/she aspires to have meaningful experiences and form his/her existence with the help of these experiences. It is important that the companies form these experiences in cooperation with the consumers. In this way, people, social connections and organizations try to adjust to the ever-changing circumstances. Thus, it is all about the cooperation between consumers and companies (Boswijk et al. 2005). Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s (2004) vision is also derived from this second generation: the generation of self directing. They state that the basis for cocreation is the dialogue between the organization and individual consumer which serves to create personalized values and experiences. The consumer, according to them, strives for co-creation: he/she feels the need to interact personally with the company which, in turn, wants to create a value proposition which is meaningful and specific for the individual consumer. Furthermore, co-creation is heavily bonded with marketing and communication. Marketing, because the needs of the consumer are at the centre of the value proposition, and communication, because it forms the basis of the cocreation concept: there is no contact without interaction, and no interaction without contact (Swenneker 2006). 20 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), however, observed the following paradox: consumers have more choices which provide less satisfaction, and managers have more options which provide less value. The value lies in the interaction and communication between the consumer and the company, and the communication and interaction of the consumers with each other. The meaning for the consumer lies in the combined value creation at a certain time and a certain place in the context of a certain event. According to Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), the real co-creation experience is neither company, nor product-centred. There is no longer such a thing as purely external and internal communication: the company is more transparent than ever with regard to their communication with the consumer. Having defined the general idea behind co-creating following Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004), it is time to become more precise and discuss the principles of co-creation. §2.4 The principles of co-creation The leading role in all phases of the development and the realization of the experience concept is occupied by the input of the consumers. Co-creation ideas must not only be taking into consideration within the created meaning environment, but also during the ‘considering’ and ‘developing’ of it. The development of an innovation or an experience concept is the process of planning, doing and reflecting. If consumers and companies work together in this process they record greater successes than if they work individually. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) introduce a principle that is of great importance for this process: the so-called DART principle. In the DART principle the following four building blocks are of importance: Dialogue, Access, Risk assessment and Transparency (Boswijk et al. 2005). The first building block of the DART principle, Dialogue, is a well-known principle in the field of communication. It stands for interactivity, deep involvement and the inclination to act, referring to both the consumer and the company. Dialogue is more than just listening to consumers; it also implies empathy for what consumers experience and the awareness of the emotional, social and cultural 21 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars context of experiences. The principle of learning by sharing is fitting in this context: the company learns from the consumer via the dialogue and vice versa. Access. The traditional focus of the company was placed on the transfer of a property from the company to the consumer. The company created a valuable product and the consumer purchased it by means of a transaction. But now customers are more and more interested in the experience of the product and less interested in the service or the property of it (Rifkin 2000). Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) argue in favour of a clear-cut separation between the access to a product and the ownership of the product, i.e. not only the owner has access to the product. Access can be provided by offering easy accessible relevant information. Risk Assessment. ‘Risk’ means the risk that the consumer runs. The principle of co-creation implies that the company clearly reveals its disadvantages. Risk assessment is one of the main issues in co-creation. Transparency is also a well-known term in the field of communication. In the past, companies have profited from the inequality between the knowledge of the company and the knowledge of the consumer. During the last couple of years this inequality disappeared, since information is becoming more and more easily accessible. according Socially to justified Boswijk et undertakings, al. (2005), openness essential and transparency requirements for are, modern management. These four factors: Dialogue, Access, Risk assessment and Transparency, have to been seen in combination with each other. Together they form the four building blocks of co-creation. Value creation does not take place anymore inside the company; value is created within the individual. But what does this development mean for the future of communication? The powerful effects model is an early mass communication model that compares media messages to a hypodermic needle injecting a potent message directly into the audience (Griffin 1991). This is, however, totally different to how Boswijk et al. (2005) see the development of the society and the communication messages. Boswijk et al. (2005) see a dialogue between companies and customers which takes place not only in the pre-testing phase, throughout the whole communication process. They also see 22 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars demanding customers, who not only want the final product, i.e. the last part of the production process, but who want to have influence from the first drawing of a new product onwards. They see customers who want to be involved in the whole creation concept, by means of total transparency and access. According to Boswijk et al. (2005), all these visions are united in one concept: Co-creation. As stated in the introduction, business life (in general) and especially professional communication bureaus are quickly picking up on the vision of cocreation. The first examples of co-creation seem to be successful and thus are encouraging other companies to also co-create with their customers. But, like with all new trends, you only hear the success stories. There has been no research yet on the appreciation of co-creation on the part of the consumers. And, if people are open to co-creation, is this possible for all kinds of product categories or only for a few of them? Do people really want to co-create with, for instance, the waste department of the government? These issues will be addressed in this thesis and a clear definition of ‘co-creation communication’ given. 23 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §2.5 Eight styles of firm-customer knowledge co-creation Chris Lawer (2006) defines eight styles of firm-customer knowledge co-creation. He distinguishes between a number of levels and forms of co-creation from the perspective of the customer (see Figure 3). (Research and Development) Figure 3: Eight styles of firm-customer knowledge co-creation The eight different styles of co-creation are: 1. Product “finishing” – The customer completes the product or service and is hence the final co-creator of value or actor in the business system or value chain. 2. New product design and development (lead user) - Here a limited number of expert customers are invited into the firm to share their knowledge and contribute to the development of new products and services. 24 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars 3. Existing product adaptation (customer feedback). Here the company actively requests and considers customer needs or feedback in order to improve its products. 4. Mass Customization. The customer is offered a limited set of companydetermined choices or options with which he/she can personalize a standard product or service template. 5. Open community ideation and product design and development. Lawer (2006) differentiates the open-source movement because a) it is more distributed than other means and b) firms yield more control to the community of users and creators. Also, open source tends to bias in digital environments. 6. New service design. Lawer (2006) distinguishes new service designs from new product design and development since the services tend to involve more consumers in the innovation process and are also easier to test in markets compared to products which are introduced through experimentation, probe and learn approaches. Furthermore, service value is inherently more adaptable than tangible product value, since it involves more knowledge-rich interaction. 7. Real-time Marketing & Service Adaptation. By shifting more to inside actual market demands and value-in-use by increasing the adaptability of the service or product, this style of co-creation is characterized by high levels of consumer dialogue and interaction, enabled by digital technology. This allows individual customers to influence the value presented by the firm in real-time. 8. Personalized Experience Value and Knowledge Co-Creation. Finally, the firm and the customer interact within an experience environment to realize unique cocreated value. The unit of value is not the product or the service but rather the individual experience and its interaction with a host or experience network partners. With the role of co-creation as a tool in external communication having been clarified, it is time to determine the co-creation definition which is relevant for this paper: Co-creation communication. 25 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §2.6 Co-creation definition for this paper: Co-creation communication In external communication, especially numbers seven and eight of the eight styles of firm-customer knowledge co-creation (Lawer 2006) are of great importance, since these points deal specifically with external communication issues. The other points should be seen more in the business-context and with reference to the way these processes could develop, they are of no relevance for our research which is based on external co-creation communication. Points seven and eight deal with the dialogue between the consumer and the business, which is why these two points should be seen in relation with the term ‘dialogue’ as illustrated in the DART principle (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). Co-creation is often mentioned in terms of consumer participation, personalization and mass customization. But as Trendwatch.com states correctly: Co-creation is NOT plain feedback without an answer, it's not Do-It-Yourself, it's not customization, it's not even personalization, as all of these actions take place after companies have decided what the basics are, which products and services and experiences they're willing to hand over to consumers. http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/CUSTOMER-MADE.htm, consulted on 06-162007 In the following subparagraphs, a short definition of these terms will be given and the difference in comparison with the term co-creation will be discussed. Consumer participation is defined as ‘…any activity done by consumers where they have power or influence on the system and services that affect their lives’ (O’Hagen et al., 2000 in Bland & Giles 2006, p.15). Typically, participation refers to the fact that they have power or influence on the system and services that affect the whole range of service activities, from individual client services to service management and education, training and research activities. Bowen, Nie, Kellogg and Youngdahl (2002) define consumer participation as ‘a form of consumer behaviour which includes preparation, relationship building, information exchange, and intervention; in other words, consumer participation includes preparation for the purchase, communication with the firm during the purchase, and the interventions with or suggestions to the firm after the purchase.’ (Bowen, Nie, 26 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Kellogg and Youngdahl 2002, p.1). The concept of participation is thus focused on purchases, in contrast to co-creation communication where the focus lies on creating value propositions (see style eight of the eight styles of firm-customer knowledge co-creation, Lawer 2006), which in turn are meaningful and specific for the individual consumer. The concept of participation is not in line with the age of communicative self direction, where the concept of co-creation originates from. Personalization and mass customization are two interrelated terms. Personalization can be defined as the ability to proactively adapt products and product purchasing experiences to the various likings of the individual consumers based on their personal and preferred information. Therefore, personalization is critically dependent on the following two factors: 1. the vendors’ ability to acquire and process consumer information, and 2. the consumers’ willingness to share information and make use of personalization services (Chellappa and Sin, 2005). Mass customization can be seen as personalization taking place at mass-production prices. In order to become a mass customizer you must make use of new technologies that allow you to efficiently provide individually customized goods and services, while at the same time you need to be a one-to-one marketer that obtains information from each customer about his or her specific needs and preferences. Customization binds producers and consumers in a learning relationship. This ongoing connection becomes more efficient as the two interact with each other, since the individual customers teach the company more and more about their preferences and needs. In this way the company can produce exactly what the customer needs. Mass customization is thus merely the adaptation of a product to the customers’ needs, as, for instance, applied by DELL (Pine, Peppers and Rogers, 1995). Our definition of co-creation communication goes much further than the mere adapting of a product, especially since we are looking at the communication aspect of co-creation. In this context, the meaning does not lie in the adaptation of a product, but rather in the experience of the combined value creation at a certain time and a certain place in the context of a certain event. This co-creation communication experience is neither company- nor product-centred; the most important matter is the dialogue with the consumer. 27 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Taking all these points into account, our definition of co-creation communication consists of six interrelated points: 1. Interactivity, deep involvement and the inclination to act, of both the consumer and the company. 2. Empathy with regard to what consumers experience and the awareness of emotional, social and cultural context of experiences. 3. ‘Learning by sharing’: the company learns from the consumer through the dialogue and vice versa. 4. High levels of consumer dialogue and interaction, enabled by digital technology. 5. Consumers change the value presented by the firm in real-time. 6. Interaction within an experience environment (like, for instance, an event) to realize a unique co-created value. The unit of value is not the product or the service, but rather the individual experience and its interaction with a host or experience network partners. Now that we have defined what co-creation communication2 is, it is important to look at how it exactly works and what factors have to be taken into account. §2.7 Designing a communication message As stated above, co-creation communication consists of six interrelated points. However, these six points don’t say anything about the way in which a co-creation communication process flows; they merely say how co-creation communication can be defined. In this paragraph we will explain that the process of co-creation communication must exist of at least three steps, and that media choice plays an important role in these three steps. Dialogue between a company and the consumers is essential in a co-creation communication process. After all, the company needs to create, in collaboration with the consumer, the external communication. Every communication message is designed differently and passes through a different medium, while each medium Throughout the remaining parts of this thesis we will refer to the practice of co-creation communication as ‘cocreation’ or ‘co-create’. 2 28 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars has its own characteristics. These characteristics influence the communication message. According to Kostelnick (1998), we need to take three things into consideration while designing a communicative massage: the receiver, the goal and the context. Koeleman (2004) defines this further and suggests the following seven categories: 1. Target group In the context of co-creation the target group is variable. It depends on the company and who it wants to address. In this research, the target group will be defined by age, gender and educational level. 2. Objectives The objective is generally the same in all situations: targeting people to cocreate with the company. However, there are, of course, differences in the cocreation acts that the target group needs to carry out. They could, for instance, have to create a new television advertisement, invent a new name for a product or make a picture of themselves for an advertisement. 3. Who is communicating The company initially communicates with the target group and the target group has to respond. 4. Subject The subject depends on the situation, but needs to be able to prompt the target group to participate in co-creation. 5. Style The style depends on the context, i.e. the target group, the products, the possibilities, the budget etc. 6. Moment The moment of communicating also depends on the context. 7. Channels and means The choice for the channels and means has is strongly linked to the media which is used to co-create. When deciding which media to use, one needs to take all the above mentioned steps into account. The choice of media is therefore a critically important factor in the process of co-creating. In section 2.7.2 we will discuss this aspect in more detail. 29 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars The seven categories listed above show the aspects that a company has to take into account when communicating with the target group. However, the communication with this target group is, of course, not the only action that you have to take into account if you wish to co-create. The full co-creation communication process will be discussed in the following paragraph. §2.7.1 The three steps of co-creation After discussing the concept of co-creation and looking at the conditions required for successful co-creation, we have come to the conclusion that co-creation communication needs to involve at least three steps: Step 1) Attracting the attention of the consumer to communicate with respect to what the company wants from the consumer: the request to cocreate. Step 2) Giving options on how the consumer can respond to the company Step 3) Transferring the input of the consumers to the external communication message. We assert that a communication practice must at least consist of these three steps, and will illustrate this in more detail in section 2.8 by discussing a practical cocreation case. In the qualitative part of this research we will discuss two other cases that will also turn out to consist of these three steps. §2.7.2 Media choice As already mentioned in section 2.7, the choice of media is an important factor that has to be taken into account in the process of co-creation. In order to make meaningful statements about media and co-creation communication it is important to look at some leading theories on this topic. The Media Richness Theory (MRT) is one of the most prominent theories referring to media choice. According to this theory, companies can choose which medium is best for each step of the communication process. MRT is concerned with identifying the most appropriate medium in terms of “medium richness” for 30 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars communication situations characterized by equivocality and uncertainty (Donabedian 1998). Rich media (face-to-face and telephone) are proposed to be suitable for resolving equivocal situations, while lean media (written documents) are said to be more suitable for reducing uncertainty (El-Shinnawy & Markus 1997). These two terms, equivocality and uncertainty, should be seen from the perspective of the receiver and will be explained in more detail in the following subparagraphs. Media which effectively avoid equivocality and uncertainty are those types which ensure that people have less uncertainty with regard to the content of the message and feel less equivocal about it. Hence, ‘rich’ media ensure that people understand the message completely. Uncertainty has been defined as the difference between the amount of information required to perform a task and the amount of information already possessed by the organization (Galbraith 1973). To reduce uncertainty, communication media need to bridge the gap between the amount of information already possessed and the information required to perform the task. The level of uncertainty decreases with an increasing amount of processed information. (Daft & Lengel, 1986). Equivocality refers to ambiguity (Daft et al. 1987) and mutable, conflicting interpretations (Daft & Macintosh 1981). In equivocal situations, it is not evident what questions need to be asked and, when questions are asked, clear answers are frequently unavailable (March & Olsen 1976). Equivocality arises in cases in which individuals’ frames of reference differ and negotiation is necessary to reach a shared understanding (Daft et al., 1987). Communication media which are appropriate for the reduction of equivocality need to promote the ability to clarify or explain, rather than simply provide large amounts of data (El-Shinnawy & Markus 1997). Companies who wish to co-create have to take both equivocality and uncertainty into account when choosing their medium. However, as El-Shinnawy & Markus (1997) state, although media richness is an important determinant of people’s media choice, the manner in which this concept has been created and measured in connection with traditional media may be inapplicable or inappropriate in the context of the new media. The Media Richness Theory does not take the new 31 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars media, like, for instance, e-mail and the internet, into consideration. Studies show that the medium’s communication mode (preference to receive or to send) and documentation capabilities (communication documentation and retrieval) as well as the user’s role as either message sender or recipient, play a role just as important as equivocality and uncertainty. The user’s role can also be all-important, since ElShinnawy & Markus (1997) found out in their study that when receiving messages people preferred an e-mail, but when sending a message they preferred to use voice mail. The study presented by Hill & Monk (2000) shows that recipients do not rate messages or the senders of the messages differently depending on the medium used (e-mail or printed text). It is concluded in this study that the e-mail has taken on many of the characteristics previously associated with print (Hill & Monk, 2000). They also concluded that there was no evidence suggesting that an email message has less weight in persuading people to reply positively to a message. In this study, the pattern of reply frequencies is explained completely by the relative effort which is required in order to reply. This effort to reply is thus also something that companies who want to co-create have to take into account (Hill & Monk, 2000). All these factors and their relation to different media are presented in Table 2. It is clear that the choice of media is a complex phenomenon. There are a number of different factors that companies who wanting to co-create have to take into account. There are no studies which have explored the wants and needs of the public concerning the choice of media in the context of co-creation, but there are some theories about media preferences in relation to age, which is one of the factors that we will also focus on in this paper. Van Rees and van Eijck (2003) describe the impact age has on the choice of media. They observed that the factor age is an important variable in order to understand media use. Traditional medium types, such as print media and public television, appear to be the exclusive domain of the elderly, while new media, like the internet, are preferably used by the younger population, and mostly by men. Besides this, it seems that the relation between educational level and media usage depends on age. Younger people with a lower education prefer the commercial repertoire more than people with the same educational level but of older age. 32 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Although we will consider this article when forming meaningful hypotheses in section 3.2 we need to keep in mind that this research is not focused directly on cocreation. When looking at the broad spectrum of media research we can see that there a numerous factors that have to be taken into account when choosing a medium. The following factors will be considered in this research: equivocality and uncertainty, the medium’s communication mode, documentation capabilities, the user’s role as message sender or recipient and the effort required to reply. Age is also a factor we will take into account when looking at media since media preferences are known to differ with respect to age. 33 Radio Television E-mail Written letter A internet page High A newspaper A magazine Average Personal on a event High Low Average YouTube / make a movie High Uncertainty avoidance Low Low High Equivocality Average Average Average Low High Average Low Low Average Medium Communicati on Mode Speech /Listening Speech /Listening Writing /Reading Writing /Reading Speech /Listening Writing /Reading Writing /Reading Retrieval and documentation : Hard Retrieval and documentation : Hard Retrieval and documentation : Easy Retrieval and documentation : Average Retrieval and documentation : Hard Writing Reading /Speech /Listening Retrieval and documentation : Easy Retrieval and documentation : Average Retrieval and documentation : Average Writing /Reading / Speech /Listening Retrieval and documentation : Easy Document Capabilities Room for editing: Low Room for editing: Low Room for editing: High Room for editing: High Room for editing: Low Room for editing: High Room for editing: High Room for editing: High Room for editing: High Distribution to others: Hard Distribution to others: Hard Distribution to others: Easy Distribution to others: Hard Distribution to others: Hard Distribution to others: Easy Distribution to others: Hard Distribution to others: Hard Distribution to others: Easy Message access(access to content): Linear Message access(access to content): Linear Message access(access to content): Non-linear Message access(access to content): Non-linear Message access(access to content): Linear Message access(access to content): Non-linear Message access(access to content): Non-linear Message access(access to content): Non-linear Message access(access to content): Linear /Nonlinear Table 2; Media and their criteria as derived from El-Shinnawy & Markus 1996 34 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §2.8 Co-creation Case: Celebrate Football After having defined co-creation communication and having explained how it works, it is time to look more closely at a co-creation campaign in order to illustrate the three steps of co-creation. We will take a look at the co-creation campaign that TBWA\Brand Experience Company Amsterdam carried out for the beer brand Amstel. In the context of a football game, after the goal itself, spectacular player celebrations also score very high in terms of pure entertainment value. TBWA\Brand Experience Company gave this insight a special twist for the beer brand Amstel by means of an interactive campaign in which the football fans themselves were invited to invent and perform their very own post-goal celebrations. A purpose-built miniature stadium was constructed in Istanbul on the day of the UEFA Champions League Final in 2005. Fans took to the pitch, and, in memory of infamous and classic post-goal celebrations such as Fabrizio Ravanelli’s shirt-over-head celebration, presented really extravagant and entertaining moves. The celebrations in the miniature stadium were captured on film and posted on amstel.com as movie clips that they could send via e-mail to their friends. The winning celebrator, chosen by Amstel on the spot, received VIP tickets to the final that night as well as having his celebration turned into a 30 second commercial for Amstel that would be broadcasted that night in the stadium. The event attracted thousands of fans and managed to catch the attention of the national and international media. This was the perfect build-up to Europe’s biggest football event in 2005, the UEFA Champions League Final between Liverpool FC and AC Milan. We are now going to take a more detailed look at this campaign to see which parts of this can be referred to as ‘co-creation communication’. The campaign carried out by Amstel was first brought to the people’s attention by the following advertisement in the Netherlands (Figure 3), and by a worldwide commercial. 35 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 3; Amstel Ad This advertisement made people aware of the ‘celebrate football’ campaign and this ‘Name that celebration’ was followed up online by a real fan-quiz format where the participants could win prizes. The goal was to make people aware that Amstel was the official sponsor of UEFA Champions League Final. Amstel gave the fans in Istanbul a chance to act out and invent their own personal great goal celebrations. A mobile experience transformed into a portable pitch with artificial grass gave fans the setting and space to live out their schoolboy dreams of becoming a professional footballer and celebrating goals in front on an adoring crowd. The experience consisted of: - Artificial Grass Pitch 36 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars - Judges dugout including two famous Turkish football players and the previous coach of the Turkish team. The judges had scoreboards numbered from one to ten which were to be used to give instant scores on a particular celebration. - Big Screens which live broadcasted the invented celebrations. - Amstel Football Celebrations scoreboard on the big screen TV which kept record of the top five celebrations of the day with names and final scores. - Amstel Boarding - Supporters’ Tribune (see Figure 4) - Entertainment: a presenter/master of ceremony (a DJ from the famous Turkish radio station Radyo Spor), a cheerleader dance group, and a freestyle Football Show (the winner of the Nike Just Play Cup 2002) - Amstel’s internet consoles, allowing fans the opportunity to instantly send photo and film messages from the event location (see Figure 5). This Amstel ‘Celebrate Football’ celebrating experience is a typical example of co-creation communication if we take into account the six interrelated points of co-creation (see section 2.6): 1. Interactivity: deep involvement and the inclination to act, both on the part of the consumer and the company. In the example, Amstel used the UEFA Champions League Final as a stage and the people visiting the final in Istanbul as the target group. People who come to the final are deeply involved with this event and are thus more inclined to take part. 2. Empathy: what consumers experience and the awareness of the emotional, social and cultural context of the experiences. In the example, TBWA\Brand Experience Company and Amstel had a good insight into what the consumers experience in this environment. People who come to these matches are real football fans, given the high travelling costs and the limited seating availability. Nevertheless, people came to Istanbul to experience this big event, and were thus in an excited and cheerful mood. This campaign was meant to enable these people to show their emotions in a relevant context, and to share these emotions with other people. 37 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars 3. ‘Learning by sharing’: the company learns from the consumer through the dialogue and vice versa. Although this point might be to a lesser extent relevant to the campaign presented in the example, we think Amstel learned to what extent people are involved with football, and how they make use of this enthusiasm in the future. We think the consumers didn’t learn that much, but that they nevertheless enjoyed expressing themselves through this experience. 4. High levels of consumer dialogue and interaction, enabled by digital technology: Amstel also used this criterion of co-creation. They used the internet as a way of communicating with their target group, but also as a way for the target group to be able to use the outcome of their participation in the co-creation: the celebration movie. 5. Consumers change the value presented by the firm in real-time: This wasn’t the case in this example. 6. Interaction within an experience environment (like for instance an event) creates a unique co-created value. The unit of value is not the product or the service itself but rather the individual experience and its interaction with a host or experience network partners: Football supporters were able to interact in this experience environment. By doing so they created an experience for themselves, and provided an external communication message for Amstel. 38 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 4: Overview of the experience 39 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 5: The internet consoles This Amstel ‘Celebrate Football’ celebrating experience is not only a typical example of co-creation communication with respect to the six interrelated points of co-creation, but also because it consisted of the three steps of cocreation that will be briefly discussed here. Step One: In order to motivate the fans to take part in the celebrating experience, TBWA\Brand Experience Company let one of the biggest radio stations of Turkey, Radyo Spor, broadcast an announcement a few days before the event in order to create awareness and to generate traffic to the upcoming Amstel experience. They also commissioned the radio station to broadcast fragments of the experience throughout the day of the event and to conduct some live interviews. Next to this, they engaged a presenter with a broad knowledge of football to hype up the crowd and give a running commentary on what was happening on the Amstel pitch and on the big screen (Figure 6). He was also promoting the event to the passing crowd in order to get more fans involved. The extra incentive for participating was the chance to win 2 VIP tickets to the final and the showing of the movie in the stadium during the brake. Looking at the table presented by El-Shinnawy & Markus 1997 (Table 2) we see that the combination between radio and a live show at an event is a smart choice. With radio the uncertainty avoidance is low, but this is compensated by the event where the uncertainty avoidance is comparatively high. Furthermore, the average equivocality level of the radio broadcast is compensated by the high equivocality of the live show carried 40 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars out at the event. The low level of reach by the live show at the event on the other hand is compensated by the high level of reach with the radio broadcast. Step Two: The fans could only react through one kind of media in this co-creation situation: by letting themselves be filmed by the Amstel film crew. By looking at Table 2 we can see that this is a very suitable media for step two. The retrieval and documentation options are easy and the room for editing is high, which means that it is easy to make the external communication message from this input. Step Three: Amstel used the best celebration for their external communication. This movie would be used in a special Amstel commercial to be broadcasted on the big screen before the final, and thus becomes external communication. In the case of a movie, the level of uncertainty avoidance is high and the equivocality is average, which means that it is likely that this media will provide optimal understanding for the consumer. Figure 6; the big screen and the winner (on the right and on the big screen) 41 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars This campaign clearly demonstrates that co-creation communication needs to involve the three steps mentioned above. This means: 1) attracting the attention of the consumer in order to communicate their question, 2) giving options as to how the consumer can respond, and 3) the transferring of the input into the external communication message. §3 Problem Statement In this section the main question and various sub-questions will be introduced, derived from the theoretical framework. The first part of this research will be a quantitative research amongst consumers. Beside this quantitative research there will also be a qualitative research, consisting of two parts: the first part will be the discussion of a successful and an unsuccessful case of co-creation, while the second part will consist of interviews with executive marketing managers of important firms and senior managers of top advertising firms. With the help of these interviews we will try to shed some light on the results from the quantitative research and provide a better insight into co-creation from a business point of view. §3.1 Quantitative Research: Main Question and Sub–questions §3.1.1 Main Question After having defined the topic, the main question can be formulated as: ‘To what extent do people appreciate co-creation communication and are they willing to participate?’ Co-creation should be seen in the light of communication as defined above. This research deals with a knowledge problem meaning that it will be a 42 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars fundamental study. To be able to give a proper answer to the main question it is necessary to separate it into several sub-questions. §3.1.2 Sub-questions The following sub-questions are subtracted from the previous paragraphs: 1. To what extent do consumers appreciate co-creation communication? 2. To what extent are consumers willing to co-create? 3. To what extent is the appreciation of the consumers for co-creation communication dependent on the medium chosen to address them? 4. To what extent is the willingness of the consumers to co-create dependent on the medium chosen for them to respond? 5. To what extent is the appreciation of the consumers for co-creation communication dependent on the medium chosen for the output of the co-creation message? 6. To what extent is the willingness of the consumers to co-create dependent on the product categories3? 7. To what extent does age influence the willingness of consumers to cocreate? 8. To what extent does age influence the appreciation of consumers for co-creation communication? §3.2 Hypothesis We also formed some relevant hypotheses referring to the possible outcomes of this research. Since co-creation is a relatively new concept in the scientific world, not all hypotheses could be completely supported by literature and are thus formed partly by intuition. Hypothesis 1: Appreciation of co-creation communication. 3 The question about the product categories is added to this research in order to get some more relevant marketing insight, this is particular important for TBWA\Brand experience but has lesser relevance toward the University of Utrecht. 43 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars We expect that consumers appreciate co-creation communication because it is more adapted to their individual needs. This kind of communication is formed by other consumers, or even by themselves, and thus gives a realistic reflection of what the consumers expect and want. Besides this, cocreation is a new and creative concept which could also be appealing to the consumers. It also fits in with the ongoing changes that are happening in society: the shifting towards communicative self direction (Cornelis 1988) and the shift towards the second generation experiences, i.e. experiences as co-creation communication (Boswijk et al. 2005) as mentioned in the theoretical framework. Since we are currently shifting towards this second generation it seems logical that people appreciate the corresponding external communication method that we have defined as co-creation communication. Hypothesis 2: Willingness to co-create. We expect that consumers are sometimes willing to co-create, since they have a direct say in what they actually communicate about, while, at the same time, they are given the chance to say what they really think of a product. Besides this, co-creation is a new and creative concept which could be appealing to them and it also fits in with the ongoing changes that are happening in society: the shifting towards communicative self direction and experiences as co-creation communication, as already explained above. We say that consumers are only sometimes willing to co-create, since we think that the willingness to carry out co-creation communication is dependent on the product category (see hypothesis 6), i.e. people are not always willing to co-create to carry out co-creation communication with everyone. Hypothesis 3: Media choice step one. According to the research carried out by El-Shinnawy & Markus (1997), people prefer the communication medium mode of ‘reading’ instead of, for instance, listening, and also prefer their message access to be non-linear, which means that they can access the information in their own time. It is important that all the information is given, i.e. that the uncertainty avoidance 44 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars is as high as possible. It is also important that people understand what a company is asking from them, which means that the equivocality is also high. According to this, the two most appropriate media would be the internet and the e-mail. Furthermore, personal interaction during an event scores high, due to the fact that both uncertainty avoidance and equivocality score high when this medium is used (Daft et al. 1987). The hypothesis is thus that the consumers’ appreciation for co-creation depends on the medium chosen to address them, and that they mostly appreciate the internet, e-mail and personal interactions during an event. This hypothesis is based on the whole group of participants. We, however, expect that the appreciation level differ by age (van Rees and van Eijck 2003), and that print media such as letters, newspapers and magazines, will be more appreciated by the older age categories. In contrast, we expect the internet to be appreciated more by people belonging to the younger age categories. We also expect that younger people prefer media that is mostly used for commercial purposes, like television, radio and billboards (see also hypothesis seven). Hypothesis 4: Media choice step two. According to the research carried out by El-Shinnawy & Markus (1997), people generally prefer to respond with speech, but in the context of cocreation, this might not be the best medium. With speech the room for editing is low, which is an important factor if you are wanting to create something good. For the company speech is also inconvenient because it makes it hard to store the information. The best media from my point of view would be e-mail and the internet, due to the fact that these media are easily editable and storable (El-Shinnawy & Markus, 1996). These two types of media have a high degree of uncertainty avoidance, the distribution of the information towards others is simple (also very important if you want people to respond) and the message access is non-linear, which means that the people working in the organization and the consumers can co-create within their own time-schedule (El-Shinnawy & Markus 1997). This hypothesis is also based on the whole group of participants. We, however, expect that also 45 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars in this context the willingness to co-create will differ with respect to age (van Rees and van Eijck 2003). Since van Rees and van Eijck do not distinguish between step one: receiving from, and step two: responding with, our expectations are the same as in hypothesis 3. We therefore expect that print media such as letters, newspapers and magazines will be more appreciated by the older age categories and that the internet will be more appreciated by those belonging to the younger age categories. We would also expect younger people to prefer media mostly used for commercial purposes, like television, radio and billboards. Hypothesis 5: Media choice step three. The theories discussed above are not really relevant when making a hypothesis referring to sub-question five. Intuitively, we would say that a television campaign would have the highest profile and hence would be most appreciated by the consumer. In supplementation to this, we would expect a billboard advertisement to score higher than an advertisement in a newspaper or a high profile magazine. Just like the previous two hypotheses we would also expect print media such as letters, newspapers and magazines to be more appreciated by the older age categories and the internet to be more appreciated by people belonging to the younger age categories. We would also expect younger people to prefer media that is mostly used for commercial purposes, like television, radio and billboards. Hypothesis 6: Product categories and willingness to co-create. We expect that the willingness of consumers to co-create is dependent on the product category. We have presume that a consumer is more willing to cocreate with a product that has something to do with a product that directly reflects the personality of the respective consumer, than with a category that is less image-bound. We could imagine, for instance, that a consumer would prefer to co-create with Nike, instead of with Heinz if Nike directly reflects his image, and Heinz, in contrast, does not reflect his image directly. 46 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Hypothesis 7: Co-creation and age. We expect age to play an important role in the willingness to co-create. Younger people are more technology -savvy (Keller 2002) and thus more likely to be able to use the means that are sometimes necessary in order to co-create (i.e. making your own commercial on the computer, uploading pictures etc.). Furthermore, due to the fact that they are able to co-create, they might appreciate co-creation communication more because they don’t feel left out. In addition, the younger age groups have been brought up in the years of communicative self direction (Cornelis 1988) and might therefore be more open to the concept. We thus expect that a younger age group is more willing to participate in, and better appreciative of, co-creation. Besides this, as already mentioned in hypotheses three, four and five, we expect the appreciation and willingness to co-create with different media to differ by age (van Rees and van Eijck 2003), and that the print media such as letters, newspapers and magazines will be more appreciated by the older age categories, whereas we expect the internet to be appreciated mainly by people belonging to the younger age categories. We also expect younger people to prefer media that is mostly used for commercial purposes, like television, radio and billboards (van Rees and van Eijck 2003). §3.3 Qualitative research The qualitative research consists of two parts: the first part contains a discussion of a successful and an unsuccessful case of co-creation, whereas the second part contains of interviews with executive marketing managers of Philips, Sport 1 and Heineken and senior managers of TBWA\PR Company, TBWA\Brand Experience Company and TBWA\Neboko. With the help of these interviews we will try to shed some light on the results of the quantitative research, provide a better insight into co-creation from the business point of view, and give some explanations about the remarkable results obtained in the quantitative part of this thesis. The interviews consist of some basic questions as a guideline, but will be of open character. 47 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §3.4 Relevance This research is relevant in several contexts. First of all, it has theoretical relevance. The field of co-creation is relatively new in the scientific area and therefore not much scientific research has been carried out in this area so far. Most of the research referring to this topic is carried out in the area of marketing; but this research focuses solely on the communication part of cocreation. It is aimed at determining what co-creation exactly means in the communicative area, and, maybe even more critical, at finding out if, and to what extent, consumers actually are willing to co-create. Therefore, it tries to determine if co-creation is in fact an empty shell (created by marketeer gurus and communication agencies) or rather a meaningful concept, fulfilling a need existing in consumers. Besides the scientific relevance there is also a social relevance to this research. Co-creation is a practice used increasingly by companies. However, there has been no previous research which shows that this form of communication is actually wanted or appreciated by consumers. The results of my research will attempt to clarify whether consumers want participate in co-creation communication, and if the willingness to participate differs with respect to the product category, the age group of the consumer and the media that is used in each step of the process. §4 Methodology §4.1 Introduction to the Methodology In this section several aspects of the research are outlined in detail. First of all, the research design is discussed, which includes the description of the target group and the participants. In addition, the choice of the research method and the description of the applied procedures are given. 48 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §4.2 Target Group, Participants and Research Method The choice was made to carry out the research in the quantitative part of this thesis with the help of a questionnaire. Given the fact that co-creation is a relatively new area, we do not believe that a focus group or an in-depth interview would help to establish a view on the subject as most people have probably never encountered co-creation before and therefore haven’t been able to form an opinion on the topic. By testing a large number of people we hope to gain a better insight into the general opinion about this subject. The questionnaire was conducted in cooperation with Directresearch.nl, a company specialized in online research. The questionnaire had to be completed online by the participants since the concept of co-creation communication is explained with examples that involve a video commercial and due to the fact that Directresearch.nl is specialized in online research. The target group consists of 305 participants between 15 and 65 years of age. The participants can be seen as a sample of the Dutch population coming from a consumer’s panel that consists of over 18.000 members (www.Polland.nl, 06-16-2007). All the participants stated that they were willing to participate and were rewarded after their participation. Due to this reward, www.polland.nl claims that the results are more reliable (www.polland.nl, 06-16-2007). We will now look at the frequencies of gender, educational level and age in order to see if they are more or less evenly divided and thus can be seen as a representative sample. Looking at the frequencies of gender (Table 3), we can see that there are far more female than male participants: which means that we are not allowed to compare these groups with each other. The same applies to the frequencies of the educational level (Table 4). When looking at the different age categories we can see that the frequencies of these are more or less the same, which means that we are allowed to compare these groups with each other (see Table 5). This is important with regard to the fact that we want to make meaningful claims about the influence of age on participation and willingness to co-create. 49 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Gender 200 150 100 50 0 Male Female Table 3: Frequencies of gender Educational level 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Lower middle High educational educational level educational level level Table 4: Frequencies of educational level Age groups 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 Table 5: Frequencies of age groups §4.3 Justification of the questionnaire In this section the questionnaire will be justified and the reliability of the construct ‘appreciation’ will be given. The questionnaire ’begins with a brief explanation of the structure behind the questionnaire. After this, the concept 50 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars of co-creation communication is explained in consumer-friendly language in order to generate the highest possible level of understanding (this explanation will be illustrated by three examples). The three examples (see appendix A) are all three taken from different product categories (dog food, an insurance company and chips) and are all conducted with the help of different media (a photo in a magazine, a TV commercial and the name of a new product). Finally, a brief explanation of the questionnaire is given, before the questionnaire ends with a few personal questions relating to age, gender en educational level. In this research we have chosen to use a closed-ended questionnaire with a Likert scale. In ‘The Psychology of Survey Response’ from Tourangeau, Rips & Rasinski (2000) different answer options are discussed. For this research we have chosen closed-ended questions, due to the fact that these questions ask for a certain opinion on a subject and offers the respondents options of answering that he or she otherwise might not have thought of (Molenaar 1982). Tourangeau et al. (2000) points out some of the difficulties relating to the numbering of the Likert scale: a few of those difficulties are that negative numbers are perceived as more extreme than positive numbers, and that extreme answers are given to a lesser extent. To avoid these difficulties, the Likert scale isn’t numbered. As a result of the pre-test it turned out that people preferred to have the positive items at the right side and the negative ones at the left. All the questions in the questionnaire are now designed like this. Touranguea et al. (2000) and Molenaar (1982) also recommend the use of a five point scale so that people can see the difference between the different scales but also avoids primacy and recency effects. In the questionnaire we have incorporated a neutral category. Without this category you could force an answer that the person doesn’t really stand by (England 1948; Kalton et al. 1978). Since the concept of co-creation is explained before the questions on the subject are asked, the questionnaire does not have a ‘no opinion’ option. According to the pre-test, the explanation of co-creation was clear and people thus had to form some kind of opinion about the subject. Within the pre-test no problems occurred with 51 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars regard to the explanation of the concept of co-creation, but the question referring to openness was changed into a two point scale because people said a five point scale for this question was confusing. They stated that there is no such thing as ‘a little bit open for something’: their opinion was that you are either open towards something or not. The different product categories that are tested are derived from Keller (2003). Products can be defined broadly to include physical goods, services, retail stores, online businesses, people, organizations, places, or ideas. For this research the two most used categories were included, namely physical goods and services. Physical goods were further sub-divided into the categories eating, drinking, home, health/beauty, footwear, information/entertainment, sports, car brands, innovative products, internet services, banking, government, fast-food and clothing (Keller 2003). After the pre-test, this list was adjusted to be more suitable for the concept of cocreation and then consisted of banking, government, beverages, fast-food, house supplies, health/beauty, shoes, information/entertainment, sports, innovative products, internet services and clothing. Examples of these categories are given in the brands listed in the Interbrand 100 list (www.interbrand.nl, 06-19-2007). The reason for using brands on this list is to provide brands which are most likely familiar to everyone. Different questions were aimed at measuring the construct ‘appreciation’. These questions had to be reliable so that meaningful answers could be given. The questions about appreciation came partly from Maes, Ummelen & Hoeken (1996), but were changed somewhat after the pre-test since some terms were not relevant for co-creation, and others were missing according to the test subjects. After the research was conducted it turned out that the items measuring ‘appreciation’ were reliable (alpha=.940), which means that 94 % of the observed variance is systematic and only 6 % is caused by coincidence. This is a high reliability score which meant that the various appreciation questions could now be combined in one overall appreciation construct. 52 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5 Results In the following sections we will discuss the results of the quantitative research. The results on the overall appreciation will be given first, followed by overall appreciation and age, the appreciation/willingness of the three steps of co-creation as discussed in section 2.7.1., these three steps in relation to age, the willingness to co-create, and finally the willingness to cocreate in relation to age. §5.1 Appreciation §5.1.1 Overall appreciation Appreciation of co-creation 'I appreciate co-creation' 120 115 101 100 80 Number of people 66 60 40 14 20 9 0 agree partly agree nutrual partly disagree disagree Table 6: Appreciation of co-creation As Table 6 shows, most people appreciate co-creation, in total 216 out of 305 people gave a positive answer to this statement. 53 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.1.2 Overall appreciation and age Appreciation of co-creation and age 2.5 2 1.5 Appreciation 1 0.5 0 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 Agecathegories Table 7: Appreciation of co-creation and age The descriptive statics show that the age category 36-45 appreciates cocreation the lowest of all ages (1.86), and that the age category 56-65 appreciates co-creation the highest (2.41) (Table 7). The results of the Test of homogeneity of variance is not significant because the p-value (.062) is bigger than p <0.05. We did an ANOVA to see if there were differences in the means that are significant. The results from ANOVA show that the effect in which age plays a role is significant F(4, 300) = 2.79; p= .02. We now know that there is a difference between the age groups but we also want to know where this difference lies. By looking at the Post Hoc test (Scheffe) we can see that the age group 36-45 significantly appreciate co-creation lower that the age group 56-65 (.048). §5.1.3 Overall appreciation: Sub-conclusion When looking at the overall appreciation of co-creation we can conclude that most people are really or at least fairly positive about co-creation. Only the minority state that they are not really positive about co-creation. We can also conclude that age plays a role in this evaluation, but only with respect to the age groups 36-45 and 56-65. People in the age group 56-65 appreciate cocreation significantly higher than people in the age group 36-45. 54 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.2 Appreciation and Willingness of media in the three steps of co-creation §5.2.1 Appreciation of media to approach people (step 1) Media to approach people billboards magazine paper telephone Media sms weblog internetsite event letter email television radio 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Appreciation Table 8: Appreciation of media to approach people As Table 8 shows, the best media to approach people if you want them to cocreate are through a letter (3.17), closely followed by an event (3.14) and an e-mail (3.10). The results also show that people do not appreciate it when a company tries to approach them for co-creation through SMS (1.88) or by telephone (1.99). Before we look at the significant differences between the media we first look at the level of correlation between these different media (Table 9). We can differentiate three correlation groups: media that correlate weak, media that correlate intermediately and media that correlate strongly. Media that correlate weak have a score between (r=0.01 and r=0.30) media that correlate intermediately have a score between (r=0.31 and r=0.70) and media that correlate high have a score between (r=0.71 and r=0.99). There 55 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars are eighteen media pairs that correlate weak, forty-three media pairs that correlate average and five media pairs that correlate strongly. The majority of the media pairs thus correlate average (see Table 9). email Radio TV TV .858 1 e-mail .274 .292 1 letter .237 .270 .709 1 event .325 .383 .483 .628 1 .360 .406 .486 .389 .396 1 Internetsite weblog letter event Internet-site weblog SMS Telephone paper Magazine .392 .368 .349 .276 .293 .568 1 SMS .216 .271 .512 .467 .439 .397 .447 1 telephone .136 .234 .495 .501 .438 .279 .270 .694 1 paper .640 .670 .311 .336 .362 .430 .474 .239 .196 1 magazine .606 .636 .319 .348 .379 .445 .438 .173 .179 .925 1 billboards .624 .192 .132 .800 .795 .659 .250 .340 .440 .421 .441 Table 9: Pearson correlation between media in step one As seen in the previous section, there are a lot of correlations between the different media, but we now want to know if the differences in means between media are significant. To establish this we look at the ANOVA for repeated measures. First we look at Mauchly’s test of Sphericity to see if there is are significant differences in the differential scores between the media pairs. It turns out that in the approach of people with different media the variances are not equal because there is a significant difference between the variances (p<0.001). We thus have to look at Greenhouse-Geisser correction, the degrees of freedom and the significance level. We can say that there are significant differences between the appreciation of the different media F(5.56, 1692.06) = 66.4; p= .00. Now we know that there is a significant difference we also want to know between which media this difference lays with the Bonfferoni Post Hoc test. The appreciation of a approach with a e-mail, a letter, a event, and a magazine are significantly higher than the appreciation of a approach with the radio, a internet site, a weblog, a SMS and the telephone, all with a corresponding change result of p=0.00 except for the radio with a e-mail (p=0.02) and a magazine with a internet site (p=0.02). A letter, an event and a magazine are also appreciated significantly higher than a billboard 56 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars (p=.02, p=.04, p=.03). A billboard, the radio, the television, an internet site, and a paper are appreciated significantly higher than a SMS, the telephone and a weblog. A weblog is also appreciated significantly higher that a SMS and the telephone. §5.2.2 Appreciation of media to approach people per age group (step 1) Now we know that there are differences between the appreciation of the different media, we also want to know if these differences are related to the age groups that people belong to. In order to determine this we did a one way ANOVA analyses per media with the Post Hoc test from Scheffe. The appreciation of media to approach people per media and age category 4 3,5 Appreciation 3 16-25 2,5 26-35 2 36-45 46-55 1,5 55-65 1 0,5 pa pe r ag az in e bi llb oa rd s m sm s te le ph on e ev en in t te rn et si te w eb lo g r le tte ai l em tv ra di o 0 Media Figure 7: The appreciation of media to approach people per media and age category The descriptive statistics show that the age category 56-65 appreciates the company approaching them with any medium the lowest of all ages (see Figure 7). The results from ANOVA shows that that the age group 56-65 significantly appreciates the usage of radio F(4, 300) = 2.70; 57 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars p= .03 and an event F(4, 300) = 2.79; p= .02 the lowest of all ages but although there is an overall effect the Post Hoc test displays no significant differences. The ANOVA and the Post Hoc test also show that the age category 56-65 significantly appreciates a approach with television F(4, 300) = 3.31; p= .01 lower than the age group 26-35. Besides this, the ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age category 56-65 significantly appreciates a approach by the paper F(4, 300) = 3.84; p= .00 and by a magazine F(4, 300) = 4.16; p= .00 lower than the age group 16-25. Finally the ANOVA and the Post Hoc test also show that the age category 56-65 significantly appreciates a approach by radio F(4, 300) = 3.31; p= .01 lower than the age groups 16-25 and 26-35. After conducting a repeated measures ANOVA we can say that there is no interaction effect but two main effects: age and medium. §5.2.3 Appreciation of media used to approach people: Sub-conclusion The participants most appreciate an approach by means of a letter, an event and an e-mail, whereas they appreciate an approach by means of an SMS or the telephone the least. Most media correlate low and intermediate and only a few correlate high. This means that people can distinguish between most of the different media, and that no media groups are formed in the minds of people which means that it is not necessary to conduct a factor analysis in further research. Looking at the media used to approach people with, we see that personal media (a letter and an event) and written media (a letter, an email and a magazine) score high. SMS’s and the approach via telephone are appreciated the lowest of all media. Media appreciation of the first step of co-creation in relation to age shows that the age group 56-65 is relatively negative. The appreciation of an approach by television, by the paper, by a magazine and by radio is significantly lower than in some other age groups. The results also show that the age groups 16-25 and 26-35 are the most positive with regard to these kinds of media. 58 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.3 Appreciation and Willingness of media in the three steps of co-creation: step two §5.3.1 Willingness of people to respond through different media Willingness to respond through different media magazine paper telephone Media sms weblog internetsite Reeks1 event letter email television radio 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 Willingness Table 10: willingness to respond through different media As Table 10 shows, the best media to choose for people to respond is through the e-mail (3.12), a magazine (3.03) or the paper (2.97): people are most willing to use these media. The results also show that people are not very positive about responding through a SMS (2.03) and the telephone (2.19). Before we are going to look at the significant differences between the media we are first going to look at the level of correlations between these different media. We can differentiate three different groups of correlations; media that correlate weak, media that correlate intermediately and media that correlate strongly (Table 11). There are no media with a weak correlation; there are seventy-five media pairs that correlate average and four media pairs that correlate high. Table 11: Pearson Correlation of media for step 2 59 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars TV E-mail ,379 ,388 1 Letter ,390 ,388 ,738 1 Event ,433 ,454 ,564 ,664 1 Site ,408 ,440 ,627 ,564 ,522 1 Weblog ,440 ,424 ,525 ,427 ,423 ,621 1 SMS ,377 ,397 ,523 ,475 ,474 ,478 ,575 1 ,394 ,404 ,507 ,545 ,535 ,384 ,402 ,752 1 ,598 ,632 ,533 ,576 ,525 ,525 ,445 ,397 ,453 1 ,586 ,661 ,567 ,596 ,547 ,547 ,452 ,398 ,438 ,961 TV Telephone Paper Magazine e-mail letter event site weblog SMS Telephone radio ,850 paper Maga zine 1 We now want to test the significant differences so we will compare the different media with each other with an ANOVA for repeated measures. Looking at Mauchly’s test of Sphericity we see that with the willingness of people with different media the variances are not equal because there is a significant difference between the variances (p<0.001). We thus have to look at Greenhouse-Geisser correction. Looking at this test we can say that there are significant differences between the willingness to respond with the different media F(6.25, 1900.60) = 55,6; p= .00. When looking at the PostHoc test (Scheffe) we see that people are significantly more willing to respond through an e-mail, a letter, a event, a paper and a magazine than through an internet site, a weblog, a SMS, the telephone, the radio, the television, all with a corresponding chance result of p=.00, except a event with an internet site (p=.02) and a weblog(p=.02). People are also significantly more willing to respond through an e-mail than through a letter and an event. People are again significantly more willing to respond through an internet site than through a weblog, a SMS and the telephone. People are also significantly more willing to respond through the television than through a SMS, the telephone and the radio, all with a corresponding chance result of p=.00. People are again significantly more willing to respond through a weblog and a telephone(p=.03) than through a SMS. Finally, people are significantly more willing to respond through a radio than through a SMS. 60 1 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.3.2 Willingness of people to respond through different media per age group Now we know that there are differences between the different media, we also want to know if these differences are dependent of the age groups that people belong to. In order to determine this we did a one way ANOVA analyses per media with the Post Hoc test (Scheffe). Willingness of people to respond through different media per age category 4 3,5 Willingness 3 16-25 2,5 26-35 2 36-45 46-55 1,5 55-65 1 0,5 pa pe r m ag az in e sm s te le ph on e we bl og ev en in t te rn et si te r le tte ai l em tv ra di o 0 Media Figure 12: Willingness of people to respond through different media per age category The descriptive statistics show that the age category 56-65 is least willing to respond through any medium the lowest of all ages (Figure 12). The results from ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age group 5665 is significantly less willing to respond through the radio F(4, 300) = 6.97; p= .00, television F(4, 300) = 7.748; p= .00 and the paper F(4, 300) = 61 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars 5.05; p= .00 than the age groups 16-25, 26-35 and 36-45. The results from ANOVA and the Post Hoc test also show that the age group 56-65 is significantly less willing to respond through e-mail F(4, 300) = 3.85; p= .00 than the age groups 26-35 and 36-45. Besides this the results from ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age group 56-65 is significantly less willing to respond through a site F(4, 300) = 2.02; p= .01 than the age group 36-45. The results from ANOVA show that the age group 56-65 is significantly less willing to respond through a weblog F(4, 300) = 2.67; p= .03 in comparison with the other age categories but although there is an overall effect the Post Hoc test displays no significant differences. Finally the results from ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age group 56-65 is significantly less willing to respond through a magazine F(4, 300) = 4.36; p= .00 than the age groups 16-25 and 36-45. After conducting a repeated measures ANOVA we can say that there is no interaction effect but two main effects: age and medium. §5.3.3 Willingness of people to respond through different media: Subconclusion The participants are most willing to respond via e-mail, a magazine or a newspaper. The results also show that people are, like in step one, not very positive about responding via SMS and the telephone. There are no media that correlate weak with each other. Most of the media correlate intermediately and a few correlate high with each other. This means that people can distinguish between most of the different media, and no media groups are formed in the minds of people. Looking at the results, we see that people are more willing to respond via written media than via the other media. Furthermore, the level of interactivity plays a role: the more a media is interactive, the less willing people are to respond. SMS is the least popular media to respond with. The results also show that just like the appreciation for the approach, the age group 56-65 is again the most negative with respect to the different 62 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars media. They are significantly more negative than the other age groups about the option of responding via radio, television, e-mail, an internet site, papers and a magazine. The age groups 16-25, 26-35 and 36-45 are more willing to respond via these media. §5.4. Appreciation and Willingness of media in the three steps of co-creation: step three §5.4.1 Appreciation of media to use as external communication message Media to use with co-creation billboards magazine paper telephone Media sms weblog internetsite event letter email tv radio 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 Appreciation Table 13: Media to use with co-creation The television (3.61) is the best appreciated media to use when broadcasting the output of a co-creation message. Beside the television, a radio (3.48) and a magazine (3.46) are also highly appreciated (Table 13). Just like the 63 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars two previous steps a SMS (2.38) and the telephone (2.48) are not highly appreciated. Before we are going to look at the differences between these media we first going to look at the level of correlations between them (Table 14). We are again differentiating three different groups of correlations; media that correlate weak, media that correlate intermediately and media that correlate strongly. There are no media that correlate weak with each other. There are fifty media pairs who correlate intermediately with each other, and nine media pairs that correlate high. TV radio ,917 email TV letter event Internet -site SMS Telephone paper Maga -zine ,546 ,544 1 Letter ,590 ,581 ,831 1 Event ,622 ,613 ,686 ,801 1 ,629 ,641 ,720 ,699 ,690 1 ,564 ,542 ,585 ,557 ,601 ,751 1 SMS ,452 ,447 ,666 ,642 ,592 ,616 ,704 1 telephone ,449 ,438 ,655 ,665 ,643 ,555 ,554 ,814 1 Paper ,795 ,815 ,609 ,626 ,680 ,691 ,597 ,533 ,540 1 magazine ,790 ,820 ,619 ,630 ,678 ,700 ,587 ,514 ,536 ,982 1 billboards ,762 ,817 ,545 ,593 ,645 ,668 ,599 ,521 Table 14: Pearson correlation of media for step 3 ,482 ,869 ,887 Just like the two previous steps we are going to look at an ANOVA for dependent measures. Looking at Mauchly’s test of Sphericity we see that for the media to broadcast the final communication message the variances are not equal because there is a significant difference between the variances (p<0.001). We thus have to look at Greenhouse-Geisser correction. Looking at this test we can say that there are significant differences between the appreciation of the different media F(5.36, 1631.66) = 78,09; p= .00. Now we know that there is a significant difference we also want to know between which media this difference lays. With billboards 1 E-mail internet site Weblog weblog the appreciation of the final communication message in comparison with the other media we can see that people are significantly more willing to respond through a radio, a television, a paper, a magazine 64 1 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars and a billboard than through the e-mail, a letter, a event, a internet site, a email, a SMS, the telephone, and a weblog. People are also significantly more willing to respond through an e-mail, a letter, an event and an internet site than through the weblog, a SMS and the telephone. People are also significantly more willing to respond through a weblog than through a SMS and the telephone. Finally, people are significantly more willing to respond through the television than through a paper, a magazine, a billboard and the radio all with a corresponding chance result of p=.00. §5.4.2 Appreciation of media to use as external communication message per age group Now we know that there are differences between the different media, we also want to know if these differences are dependent of the age groups that people belong to. In order to determine this we did a one way ANOVA analyses per media with the Post Hoc test (Scheffe). Appreciation of media to use for co creation per media with different age categories 4,5 4 3,5 16-25 26-35 2,5 36-45 2 46-55 55-65 1,5 1 0,5 Media 65 pa pe r m ag az in e bi llb oa rd s sm s te le ph on e ev en in t te rn et si te w eb lo g r le tte ai l em tv 0 ra di o Appreciation 3 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 15: Appreciation of media to use for co-creation per media with different age categories The descriptive statistics show that the age category 56-65 appreciates the company using their message through any medium the lowest of all ages (Figure 15). The results from ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age group 56-65 appreciates the usage of television F(4, 300) = 4.09; p= .00 and radio F(4, 300) = 3.44; p= .00 significantly lower than the age group 26-35. The ANOVA also shows that the age category 56-65 appreciates the company using their message through an internet site F(4, 300) = 2.62; p= .03 and the paper F(4, 300) = 2.67; p= .03 the lowest of all ages but although there is an overall effect the Post Hoc test displays no significant differences. Finally, the ANOVA and the Post Hoc show that the age category 56-65 appreciates the company using their message through a magazine F(4, 300) = 3.04; p= .01 and a billboard F(4, 300) = 2.95; p= .02 significantly lower that the age group 36-45. After conducting a repeated measures ANOVA we can say that there is no interaction effect but two main effects: age and medium. §5.4.3 Appreciation of media be used as external communication message: Sub-conclusion The participants appreciate television, radio and magazines best as media be used in the final external communication message. Like in the previous two steps, the media SMS and telephone are also least appreciated and there are, as in step two, no media that have a weak correlation with each other. Most media correlate intermediately and a few correlate strong. This means that people can distinguish between most of the different media, that no media groups are formed in the minds of the people, and that no small groups of two correlating variables are formed. Hence, it is not really necessary to conduct a factor analysis in further research. Given the appreciation of the final communication message in comparison with the 66 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars other media, we can see that people appreciate media to be used as the external communication message the most if the media generate a lot of attention and are mass-media like the radio, the television, papers, magazines and billboards. SMS and the telephone have the lowest level of appreciation. Just as with the previous two steps, it is the people in the age-group 56-65 who are the most negative in their response. They appreciate the company conveying their message via radio, television, magazines and billboards significantly lower than some of the other age groups. The age groups 26-35 and 36-45 are more positive about the approach via these types of media. §5.5 Willingness to co-create with different product categories Willingness to co-create with different productcategories fo o d car-brands Product cathegories clo thing internet-services inno vative-pro ducts spo rts info rmatio n-entertainment clo thing-sho es Series1 health-beauty ho use-supplies fasfo o d spirits go vernment bank 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 Willingness Table 16: Willingness to co-create with different product categories The product category shoes (3.12) is the product category where people are most willing to co-create with. Besides shoes, also beverages (3.02) and 67 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars innovative products (3.02) score high on the willingness scale. House supplies (2.57) and fast-food (2.43) are the least popular categories to cocreate with (Table 16). Before we are going to look at the differences between the product categories we are first going to look at the level of correlations between these different product categories (Table 17). We can again differentiate the three different groups of correlations. There are no product categories that correlate weak with each other, there are forty-two Product categories that correlate intermediately with each other and there are forty-eight product categories that correlate strong. We now want to know if there are significant differences between the willingness to co-create with different product categories. In order to test this we are going to look at an ANOVA for repeated measures. Looking at Mauchly’s test of Sphericity we see that with the approach of people with different media the variances are not equal because there is a significant difference between the variances (p<0.001). We thus have to look at Greenhouse-Geisser correction. Looking at this test we can say that there are significant differences between the appreciation of the different media F(8.24, 2505.26) = 19.83; p= .00. Now we know that there is a significant difference we also want to know between which product categories this difference lays. People are significantly more willing to co-create with the government, beverages, shoes, information/entertainment, innovative products and clothing than with a bank, fast-food, house supplies and sports. People are also significantly more willing to co-create with health/beauty, internet services, car brands and food than with fast-food and house supplies. People are also more willing to co-create with shoes than with heath/beauty, internet services, car brands and food. People are also more willing to cocreate with a bank and sports than with fast-food , all with a corresponding change result of p=.00, except for information/entertainment with sports and sports with fast-food (p=.02). 68 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars bevera ges Health/ beauty Internet services beverages ,715 ,670 1 fast-food ,608 ,461 ,715 1 ,667 ,553 ,716 ,716 1 ,618 ,596 ,748 ,657 ,772 1 ,663 ,644 ,781 ,587 ,634 ,804 1 ,728 ,754 ,815 ,624 ,676 ,727 ,772 1 ,720 ,654 ,649 ,523 ,490 ,518 ,670 ,728 1 ,784 ,727 ,721 ,552 ,558 ,598 ,715 ,745 ,758 1 ,747 ,680 ,739 ,615 ,649 ,646 ,709 ,749 ,661 ,814 1 Innovative products Internet services clothing sports Innovative products government Information/ entertainment sports Shoes Information/ entertainment government 1 Housesupplies Heath/ beauty Shoes fast-food Housesupplies bank ,714 clothing car brands ,686 ,611 ,775 ,612 ,616 ,779 ,891 ,758 ,657 ,729 ,759 1 Car brands ,727 ,599 ,716 ,613 ,560 ,637 ,755 ,717 ,707 ,793 ,727 ,778 1 food ,651 ,635 ,789 ,733 ,777 ,805 ,755 ,758 ,597 Table 17: Pearson Correlation of the product categories ,650 ,696 ,769 ,684 69 §5.5.1 Willingness to co-create with different product categories per age group 4 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1 0,5 0 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 ba go ver nk nm en t sp irits ho f use asfoo d -su pp he l i a e lth inf -be s orm c lo a th in uty ati on - en g-s h o ter tai es nm en inn t ov sp ati ort ve s int ern pr od u etse c ts rvic es c lo th in ca g r-b ran ds foo d Willingness Willingness to co-create with different productcategories per age group Productcategories Figure 18: Willingness to co-create with different product categories per age group The descriptive statistics show that the age category 56-65 appreciated cocreation with a product always more negative than the other age categories (Figure 18). The results from ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age category 56-65 appreciates co-creating with the product category government F(4, 300) = 3.81; p= .00 significantly lower than the age group 46-55. The ANOVA and the Post Hoc test also show that the age category 5665 appreciates co-creating with the product category beverages F(4, 300) = 4.454; p= .00, fast-food F(4, 300) = 4.82; p= .00 and clothing F(4, 300) = 5.24; p= .00 significantly lower than the age groups 26-35 and 36-45. The ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age category 56-65 appreciates co-creating with the product category fast-food F(4, 300) = 5.34; p= .00 significantly lower than the age groups 26-35, 36-45 and 46-55. The ANOVA 70 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars also shows that the age category 56-65 appreciates co-creating with the product category housing supplies significantly lower than the other age categories F(4, 300) = 2.97; p= .02. Although there is an overall effect the Post Hoc test displays no significant differences. Besides this the ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age category 56-65 appreciates co-creating with the product category heath/beauty F(4, 300) =2.73; p= .02, information and entertainment F(4, 300) = 3.24; p= .01 and food F(4, 300) = 3.29; p= .01 significantly lower than the age group 26-35. Finally the ANOVA and the Post Hoc test show that the age category 56-65 appreciates co-creating with the product category innovative products F(4, 300) = 3.07; p= .01, internet services F(4, 300) = 3.56; p= .00 and car F(4, 300) = 3.09; p= .01 significantly lower than the age groups 36-45. After conducting a repeated measures ANOVA we can say that there is no interaction effect but two main effects: age and product category. §5.5.2 Willingness to co-create with different product categories: Subconclusion People are most willing to take part in the co-creation process with regard to shoes, beverages and innovative products, whereas they are least willing to co-create with regard to house supplies and fast-food. There are only product categories that correlate intermediately or strongly with each other. This means that people might not be able to distinguish between most of the different media, and media groups are formed in the minds of people. An example of one of those groups could be the high correlation of fast-food with house supplies, i.e. house supplies with food and food with fast-food, these product categories are connected by a high degree of correlation with each other. It is thus recommended to conduct a factor analysis in future research. People are significantly more willing to co-create with the product categories government, beverages, shoes, information/entertainment, innovative products and clothing than with a bank, fast-food, house supplies and sports. People are also significantly more willing to co-create with 71 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars health/beauty, internet services, car brands and food than with fast-food and house supplies. People are also more willing to co-create with shoes than with heath/beauty, internet services, car brands and food. And finally, people are also more willing to co-create with a bank and sports than with fast-food. We might conclude from these results that people prefer to co-create with product categories that reflect their image directly since shoes, beverages and innovative products say something about the image of the person. Like in the context of the different media, the age group 56-65 is the most negative categories group. food, car, They appreciate clothing, internet co-creating services, with the innovative product products, information/entertainment, shoes and heath/beauty significantly lower than some of the other age groups. The age groups 26-35 and 36-45 are more positive about co-creating with these product categories. §5.6 Willingness and openness towards co-creation §5.6.1 Willingness The construct ‘willingness’ is measured by two different questions. The first question is whether or not people are open towards co-creation. The second question asks directly about the willingness of consumers to co-create. 72 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.6.2 Openness towards co-creation and willingness to participate Openness towards co-creation 80 60 Precentage 40 20 0 open not open Table 19: Openness towards co-creation Most people are open towards co-creation, in total 74.4 percent of all participants (Table 19). Willingness to participate with co-creation 50 40 30 precentage 20 10 0 not at all no maybe yes totally Table 20: Willingness to participate with co-creation Although most people are open towards co-creation, most of them (48.9%) are not sure if they are willing to participate (Table 20). 73 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.6.3 Openness towards co-creation per age group. openness Openess towards co-creation 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 age groups Table 21: Openness towards co-creation per age group age openness 16_25 26_35 N 36_45 N % 46_55 56_65 N % % N % N % 46 79,3 48 82,8 56 81,2 50 72,5 27 52,9 12 20,7 10 17,2 13 18,8 19 27,5 24 47,1 Open Closed Total 58 58 69 69 51 Table 22: Summary of the differences in openness between different age groups. There is a significant difference between people and their openness towards co-creation when looking at their age (see Table 21 and 22). But there is a small connection (Cramérs V = 0.23) between age and openness towards cocreation. People in the age category 26-35 are most open towards cocreation while people in the age category 56-65 are least open towards cocreation (Chi² = 16.9; dƒ=4; p= <.002). 74 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §5.6.4 Willingness to participate with co-creation per age. Willingness Willingness to co-create 3,4 3,3 3,2 3,1 3 2,9 2,8 2,7 2,6 2,5 16-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 Age groups Figure 22: Willingness to co-create per age group The descriptive statistics show that the age category 56-65 is least willing to co-create (3,35), and that the age category 26-35 is most willing to cocreate (2,84) (Figure 22). The results from ANOVA show that the effect in which age plays a role is not significant. The p-value (.08) is bigger than alpha (.05) so the H0 hypothesis cannot be rejected F(4, 300) = 2,08; p= .08. All means for all age categories are the same. §5.6.5 Willingness: Sub-conclusion Although most people are open towards co-creation, in total 74.4 percent of all participants, most of the people (48.9%) are not sure if they would be willing to participate. There is a significant difference between the openness towards co-creation when taking the age of the participants into consideration: people in the age category 26-35 are most open towards cocreation, whereas people in the age category 56-65 are least open towards co-creation. However, age doesn’t play a role in the willingness to co-create. Before giving the general conclusion of the quantitative part of this thesis we are first going to look at the qualitative part. 75 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §6 Qualitative research In this qualitative research we will analyze two cases of co-creation, a successful and an unsuccessful one. We are going to discuss the media usage, and try to evaluate if the choice of media made in these examples might provide a valid explanation for the success or failure of the campaign. In addition, alternative explanations will be given. In the second part of the qualitative research we are going to present the views on co-creation of three marketing managers working for large companies and the various views of senior managers from several advertising firms. We will analyze if their opinions correlate with each other and with the results derived from the quantitative research. Finally, we will conclude this section by presenting the valuable insights we have gained from the cases and interviews. §6.1 Qualitative research: Part one §6.1.1 NIVEA Young: A successful campaign The first case we are going to discuss is the case of NIVEA Young: a successful example of co-creation communication. The success of a cocreation campaign can be measured by numerous things, and in this analysis we are going to determine which factors are the most important in this case. We think that success can be measured by four different factors: 1. Level of participation: This refers to the amount of responses that the company received in step two. 2. Sales: This is the increase in sale of the product. 3. Quality of the response: This refers to the quality of the response received in step two 4. Level of control: This is the level of control that the company has over the broadcasting of the send-ins from step two. 76 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars To introduce a new line of products for girls between 16 and 19 years of age (NIVEA Visage Young), the company wanted to reach out to this group in a surprising and appropriate way. This campaign is a typical example of a successful co-creation campaign and, like in most campaigns, TBWA\Brand Experience Company divided it into two areas: above-the-line promotion and below-the-line promotion. communication and Above-the-line below-the-line promotion promotion refers is theme-based to action-based communication. For the whole campaign NIVEA Visage Young used both above-the-line as well as below-the-line promotions, but only the below-theline action based communication is considered as part of the co-creation process. The theme for the above-the-line promotion was ‘come closer’ (Figure 7). Based on this theme, TBWA\Brand Experience Company started the below-the-line ‘Get Ready For Your Close-up’ campaign (Figure 8). This campaign prompted the target group to take part in a contest and to have a close-up photo taken by a professional photographer. From all participants, eight girls were selected to become the faces of NIVEA Visage Young for a poster-campaign in the schools in their region. 77 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Structure BTL-campaign Print insert Schoolcards Banners Display + POS 492.000 sachets in girl-magazines, incl. Editorials in Fancy 200.000 double freecards in schools with Tell a Friend-part Banners on Girls-sites 72.000 product/ campaign flyers in POS-bags + mini’s Website/pop-up www.nivea.nl Tell a friend Fotoshoot-events + sampling Banners www.nivea.nl Your Close-Up photo on the website All Close-Up photo’s on action-site, downloadable Ice Cards Schoolboards Your own business8 Winners at 600 cards with Close-Up photo Schoolboards at schools 10.000 ex. in own region Figure 7: The structure of the below-the-line campaign carried out by NIVEA Figure 8: Above-the-line print advertisement: ‘Come Closer’. As discussed in the theoretical framework of the quantitative part of this thesis, a co-creation campaign usually consists of three steps and this campaign was no exception: Step 1 consisted of attracting the attention of 78 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars the consumer in order to put across what they want from the consumer, Step 2 offered the consumer a number of options to respond and Step 3 transferred the input into the external communication message. We will now evaluate these steps and the choice of media usage in more detail and compare these with the results from the quantitative part. Step one: In order to reach the target group, TBWA\Brand Experience Company, next to the above-the-Line promotion like, for instance, a television commercial, posters and advertisements in magazines, also used below-the-line means. They placed inserts in the magazines Celebrity, Cosmogirl, Elle girl, Fancy and Girlz!. These inserts consisted of little books with product information, the announcement of the upcoming photo shoot and samples of the product (Figure 9). (Front) (Back) Figure 9: Insert in magazines So-called school cards were distributed in high schools throughout the Netherlands (Figure 10), and banners were placed on the websites Adlink, Ellegirl, Lycos, MNS and Web-ads (Figure 11). 79 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 10: School card Figure 11: Banners Besides the inserts, the banners and the school cards, displays were placed in stores which sold the product. The displays consisted of a stand on which the product was displayed in nice gift bags, while in these gift bags there was a flyer announcing the photo shoot (Figure 12). In addition to this, the girl magazine ‘Fancy’ placed an editorial in their magazine explaining the photo shoot campaign. All these media directed the attention of the target group towards the NIVEA website where they could register, inform a friend, find information on the product, information on where and when the photo shoot was, where they could place tips for other girls and where they could listen to music. People who wanted to participate in the photo shoot had to come up with a slogan and feed it into the website (Figure 13). From the 8.465 people who registered for the photo shoot a total of 280 participants were chosen by NIVEA on the basis of their slogan and were invited by e-mail to come to the event. 80 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 12: Store display Figure 13: Website Step two: Step two consists of two actions that had to be carried out by the consumers. They first had to register and enter their personal slogan on the internet site, and secondly they had to come to the experience itself in order to have their photo taken. The experience itself took place on three following weekends at Magna Plaza in Amsterdam (Figure 14) and 173 participants with an average age of 15-16 years attended. At the event there were also samples of the product, a ‘Fancy’ magazine and other samples of NIVEA products in bags that were given to the participants. Passers-by also received small samples of the product. 81 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 14: The experience at Magna Plaza in Amsterdam Step three: The final communication message consisted of another editorial in the ‘Fancy’ and banners on Adlink, Ellegirl, Lycos, MSN and Webads which directed people to the NIVEA website. On the website (Figure 15) people could find a photo-album with photo’s of all the contestants, so-called ice cards (Figure 16), information on the product and music. The ice cards were like a form of business cards for the participant which incorporated the picture taken at the experience. The eight winners, who were chosen by the photographer because they had the most natural look, were displayed on 600 posters on school boards inside schools throughout the country (Figure 17). 82 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 15: The website in step three Figure 16: Ice cards Figure 17: School board of one of the winners 83 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Which factors contribute to the fact that we refer to this case as a success? As mentioned above, we think that there are four factors which can be used to measure success. We will now discuss these factors in order to see if they can be applied to this co-creation campaign. 1. Level of participation Looking at the level of participation we can see that it was high for this case. There were more than 70.000 views of the website with more than 20.000 page views of the registration form, almost 8.500 people registered, around 4.000 people used the ‘tell a friend’ function and 10.000 ice cards (max.350 cards per day) were downloaded. 2. Sales In terms of co-creation it is hard to measure the success of the campaign by sale-percentages because the real pay-off of a co-creation is the awareness and the bond with a brand or product. It is also difficult to make meaningful statements on the effect of the school boards displaying the eight winners. We can, however, say that the multi-media approach has resulted in obtaining more than twice as many registrations as targeted (4.118 versus 8.465 registrations) and also in a significant reach (as mentioned above). We can also mention again the number of ice cards that were downloaded. We can conclude that this criterion for a successful campaign was also met. 3. Quality of the response The quality of the response was very high. The girls who were photographed took the contest very seriously and did their best to present themselves as ‘natural’ as possible, which was one of the criteria required to win the contest. 4. Level of control NIVEA Visage Young and TBWA\Brand Experience Company kept the level of control in this competition fairly strict. They chose the contestants, and they decided who won the contest. They also let the girls be photographed by a professional photographer instead of letting the girls send in their own picture. In this way they also made sure that the pictures on the website were of good and equal quality. 84 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars When we look at the factors that determine the success (level) of a cocreation campaign, we see that all the four factors are reflected in this case. Thus, we can conclude that this case is an example of a successful campaign. Since we have already defined which media were used in the three steps of co-creation, we can see if the success of this campaign can be explained by the choices made in media usage. To do so we will compare the chosen media in each step with the results from the quantitative part of this thesis. When we look at the most appropriate media to approach people in the age category 16-25 presented in the results of the quantitative part of this thesis, we can see they are best reached by magazines, papers and events. When looking at the NIVEA Visage Young campaign, we see that they used the medium magazine in two ways: they placed advertisements in various magazines and the magazine ‘Fancy’ additionally published an editorial. The campaign did, however, not use the media paper or event, but school cards were used, which also are printed media like magazines and papers. Displays are also promotions in a physical surrounding which could be compared with a stand at an event. The adopted school cards and displays, therefore, have some of the same functionalities as a paper or an event which might explain the success of the campaign at least within the first step of co-creation. We cannot, however, make any reliable scientific statement about this because school cards and instore displays were not analyzed in this thesis. When we look at other factors that make this choice of media successful, we can see that the target group was addressed in a very direct manner. The magazines and the websites where the advertisements were placed, were chosen specifically in order to attract the attention of the target group that NIVEA wanted to reach. In this way the media budget was used as in a very efficient manner as there were no unnecessary expenses caused by accidentally reaching the wrong target group. Due to the more than 20.000 page views of the registration form we can conclude that the right mixture of media made this first step a success. According to the research presented above people prefer to respond via magazines, papers or e-mail. The possibilities to respond offered by 85 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars TBWA\Brand Experience Company and NIVEA were through the website and by participating in the event. Both of these possibilities were not positioned in the top three of the most appropriate media for step two. Nevertheless, it was a successful approach since almost 8500 people registered and around 4000 people used the ‘tell a friend’ function. From the 280 people who were invited 173 actually showed up and 12.000 free samples of the product were given away. With respect to the media chosen in this specific case, responding through an event scored relatively high in the research but responding via an internet site is not highly appreciated. Hence, it is surprising that so many people actually visited the website and filled out the registration form. Intuitively, we suggest that this might be due to the fact that young girls have a certain desire to become famous and want to be ‘discovered’, as can be seen in the success of American Idol and other talent searching shows. Maybe this incentive was therefore so powerful that it did not really matter that not the most appropriate medium was used, and the campaign itself was strong enough to compensate for this sub-optimal media choice. According to the quantitative research, the best media to broadcast the final communication message for people aged between 16 and 25 are television, radio and magazines. The success of the final communication message as discussed by the magazine ‘Fancy’ is therefore not really a surprise. The success of the school boards is explainable, since billboards score relatively high in comparison with the rest of the media, even though they are not ranked in the top three, and also because these school boards can be referred to as high-profile media. The success of the internet site may be explainable due to the fact that the participants were able to find their own picture back on the site in addition to the fact that the magazine and billboard directing back to it in the ads and editorials. According to the research presented above an internet site scores average, but in this case there were more than 70.000 views of the website, which is, when looking purely at the results of the quantitative research, again a further unexpected success. The real incentive for visiting the website could have also been the 86 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars high functionality, the chance to see your own picture and the possibility to get free business cards. When comparing the results from our quantitative research with a successful co-creation communication case we see that there are many things in common. Especially in step one and step three there are many resemblances. Nevertheless, we are confronted with some unexpected successes of media when we look exclusively at the media that were used. In order to determine the criteria required for a successful co-creation campaign we will now look at an unsuccessful campaign, followed by the presentation of some meaningful in-depth interviews in section 6.2. §6.1.2 Chevy Tahoe: An unsuccessful campaign After having discussed a successful case of co-creation, it is wise to also look at a campaign that went wrong. A typical example of this is the co-creation campaign carried out by Chevrolet (‘Chevy’). In March, Chevy invited people to create advertisements for the 2007 Tahoe, a new car model (see Figure 18). As part of the advertisement campaign for the new Tahoe, General Motors teamed up with Donald Trump's 'The Apprentice' franchise in order to create a website that allowed consumers to create and present their own commercials online. The website where consumers are invited to make their own commercial, chevyapprentice.com, was introduced as a promotional tie to an episode of "The Apprentice" on NBC that featured the Tahoe in a contestant challenge. This website allowed readers to select backgrounds, video shots, input text and also offered so-called "Director's Tips". The winners of the contest could win prizes ranging from a Jackson Hole Getaway to a trip to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game. 87 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Figure 18: Chevy Tahoe This co-creation case also consisted of three steps: Step one was approaching people via television with an announcement in the show “The Apprentice”. The goal was to get people to visit the website where they could create their own advertisements. In Step two people could create their own advertisement on the website chevyapprentice.com. The website itself featured three parts that needed to be completed in order to finalize a commercial. In the first part people had to pick their assets, in the second they had to plan their commercial and in the third they had to pick their soundtrack. In Step three the winner was chosen and the advertisement was broadcasted on national television. There were only two kinds of media used in this co-creation campaign: television and an internet website. Step one and three were carried out via television and step three via a movie which had to be created on the website. These kinds of media are averagely appreciated according to the quantitative research presented above. Although the level of response was fairly high (the contest ran for four weeks and drew more than 30.000 entries) and some touted the vehicle's numerous selling points, the campaign did not succeed in achieving its goal. Chevy invited anyone to create an advertisement, in an open forum, without censoring the advertisements based on their viewpoint. They adopted a position of openness and transparency, and consumers took the pitch. Because the entries were not censored, some people seized this opportunity to mock SUVs as a cause of global warming, as a danger on the 88 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars highway, and as a source of social injustice. There are now some 4 dozen Tahoe advertisements featured on the website YouTube which are mostly anti-Tahoe. Chevy originally said it would keep the negative advertisements online, but eventually took them off. If we look again at the four factors that measure the success of a campaign we see that, in contrast to the NIVEA campaign, this case can only claim to be successful with regard to one of these four factors. We will now discuss these factors one by one: 1. Level of participation This first criterion to measure success is actually the only one that is met. The contest ran for four weeks and managed to draw more than 30.000 entries on the official website and also some 4 dozen entries on YouTube, a response rate that is relatively high. 2. Sales Unfortunately there is no way to measure if the sale of the Chevy Tahoe increased, since this campaign was intended to launch the new Tahoe and there were thus no figures available referring to sales prior to the co-creation campaign. Besides this, as also already mentioned in the NIVEA case, it is hard to measure the success of the campaign by sale-percentages because the real pay-off of a co-creation is the awareness and the bond with a brand or product. 3. Quality of the response As already mentioned above, the whole idea was that the people submitting a commercial would emphasize the vehicle’s main selling points, and although some did, most consumers decided to do something totally different with this opportunity. These unwanted entries subverted the Tahoe message with references to global warming, social irresponsibility, as a danger on the highway, war in Iraq, a source of social injustice, and the psychosexual connotations of extremely large cars. We can thus conclude that the quality of the response was very low, and that this is one of the two reasons why this campaign has to be referred to as being unsuccessful. 4. Level of control 89 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars The level of control is the second factor of success responsible for the failure of the Chevy campaign. Because Chevy wanted to adopt a position of openness and transparency they invited anyone to create an advertisement, in an open forum, without censoring the advertisements based on their viewpoint. Therefore, Chevy had no control over the entries on their own website. Due to the fact that people could send their movie to others, the road was wide open to save them on a computer and upload them on YouTube. Even when Chevy took the negative advertisements off the website, they still flourished on YouTube. The campaign was carried out in March 2007, and now, in September 2007, the unwanted advertisements can still be found on YouTube, even though six months have passed in the meantime. So what went wrong with this campaign? Why was the quality of the response so low? And why did the applied level of control not work in this specific case? The media that were chosen in the different steps were all appreciated averagely, something unlikely to be the root cause of the problems. In order to get the actual answer while, at the same time, gaining more insight into which issues (besides media choice and product category) could influence the success of co-creation communication, we will present the opinion of three marketing managers of big companies and three senior managers of major advertising firms who give their opinion from a business point of view. §6.2 Qualitative research: Part two §6.2.1 Enhanced insight derived from the in-depth interviews In this part of the qualitative research we will try to shed some light on the concept of co-creation from the business point of view and, at the same time, try to explain some of the results from the quantitative part of this thesis. The following paragraphs are derived from in-depth interviews with brand and marketing managers from Philips, Sport 1 and Heineken4, and senior 4 Heineken is a big Dutch beer brand that also markets Amstel 90 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars managers from different companies within the TBWA group; TBWA\NEBOKO (specialized in above-the-line advertising), TBWA\PR Company (specialized in PR advertising) and TBWA\Brand Experience Company (specialized in experience communication). We have spoken with: Lukas Kreutzer, Senior Manager Global Advertising and Global Marketing Management Philips International B.V., Lourens Kwakman, Head of Marketing Sport1 , Tanja Manders, Sponsor Manager Marketing Heineken Nederland, Joost Vianen, manager NEBOKO, Willem-Albert Bol, Management team senior consultant PR company and Antonie van Schendel, managing partner Brand Experience Company. The managers from the TBWA group had already been involved in cocreation concepts, whereas of the brand and marketing managers only Tanja Manders from Heineken had already gained some co-creation experience in connection with the ‘Celebrate Football’ campaign carried out by Amstel (as discussed in section 2.6 of this thesis). The interviews themselves consisted of several basic questions which were used as a guideline (see appendix B). In the following section the conclusion of the insights gained from the interviews will be given, ordered by theme. §6.2.2 First contact When looking at the in-depth interviews we see that co-creation is a term that both the marketing managers and the senior advertising managers are all familiar with, either through advertising firms or through the media. Tanja Manders of Heineken mentions it as one of the many marketing options, like, for instance, viral marketing, creating an event etc., which can be chosen when creating new customer experiences. Co-creation is in her view a phenomenon that has been going around for some time, although it has only recently been coined as ‘co-creation’. What therefore is new is that we are now trying to define it as a ‘regular’ marketing tool. According to Antonie van Schendel, this development has been a gradual process in which a number of activities have been practiced in the past that have now acquired a single mutual name: co-creation. This is mainly due to the new technologies and 91 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars new ways of communication. Companies are in search of their consumers, at events, sponsoring opportunities and via new media. However, van Schendel warns that there is a certain danger of overhyping co-creation and that managers shouldn’t assume that consumers have fundamentally changed and suddenly have a different view of the world: co-creation is just a way of interacting with consumers. Joost Vianen also states that co-creation is sometimes used purely as a way to generate publicity instead of a way to establish meaningful external communication messages. §6.2.3 Definition of co-creation With respect to the definition of co-creation it is apparent that the marketing managers of the companies had more difficulties in defining the concept than the senior managers of TBWA. This might be explained by the fact that the people who work at TBWA deal with advertising all the time and hence with the different services and products within this field. Therefore, they are more up-to-date with the latest trends due to the fact that they are constantly in search of new ways and new means to design effective messages for their clients. The senior manager of TBWA, Antonie van Schendel, defines cocreation as an interactive way of generating external communication for a brand in cooperation with the consumer which is partly based on how consumers think and what they feel. All the senior managers agree that consumers increasingly define the image of a brand, which makes it necessary for a company to focus on how consumers see the brand instead of how they or the employees see the brand. Since consumers have to approach the company, companies have to do something that attracts the attention of the consumer. Consumers, on the other hand, feel the need for a strong brand which they can identify themselves with. This contradiction means that the companies have to search which way to go, while being directed by the consumer, but, on the other hand, that they have to define when they do this and with whom. Companies are looking for means to offers things that attract attention of the consumer and, at the same time, are 92 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars trying to adapt to things that people enjoy. According to the marketing managers, co-creation is all about creating a bond between the consumer and the brand. §6.2.4 Opinion on co-creation When asking for an opinion on co-creation the answer given by the marketing managers and the senior managers of TBWA differ significantly. The marketing managers of the companies are in general positive about cocreation but mention explicitly some of the limitation, while the senior managers of TBWA mention mostly why companies would want to co-create. When looking at the opinion of the marketing managers we see that Tanja Manders thinks that, although co-creation communication is an interesting form of external communication, it is not suitable for every situation and can also be a costly and time-consuming undertaking. According to her, situations in which co-creation could be unsuitable are, for instance, when there is a lot of negative publicity about the brand or when the brand has a weak bond with the consumers. Lukas Kreutzer believes that the decision to adopt co-creation communication also depends on the kind of brand you’ve built and the kind of products you have. From the senior managers Antonie van Schendel agrees with him by saying that when a company is constantly introduces new products they have something meaningful to communicate to their consumers, whereas the need for innovative communication with their consumers decreases if they are not planning to introduce any new products. These companies without product innovations still want to communicate with the consumer: co-creation is a new way but also a new reason to communicate with consumers. For example, Lukas Kreutzer compares a beer brand with Philips and concludes that ‘beer’ as a product often only differs marginally which makes it necessary for brewing companies to be more innovative in the way they communicate. In comparison, Philips produces very innovative products, which means that they can afford to be less innovative in their way of 93 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars communicating due to the fact that they actually have something new to tell about their products. In reference to the quantitative part of this thesis we can see that this intuition does not coincide with the findings, whereby innovative products are highly appreciated to co-create with. It could, however, be the case that, although consumers appreciate co-creation with innovative products, it is not really necessary for these products since they might be also appreciated higher when introduced in traditional external communication campaigns. The answers of the senior managers of TBWA are totally different from the answers listed above by the marketing managers of Philips, Sport 1 and Heineken. As already mentioned, the answers from the senior managers of TBWA rather embrace the reasons for co-creation from the point of view of a company. According to Antonie van Schendel and Joost Vianen, companies want to co-create in order to attain a better bond with the consumer, and to involve consumers actively with the brand. Joost Vianen and Willem-Albert Bol both suggest that companies also want to co-create because it is a hype at this moment in time and it therefore generates a lot of publicity. WillemAlbert Bol explains this by stating that consumers are ready for co-creation: they don’t merely want to consume anymore, but also want to have an opinion on things which they are willing to share. Also, brands are looking for a certain level of interactivity with their consumers. These opinions are in line with the theoretical framework of this thesis. We are now situated in breakeven point five of Thijssen (2004), the experience revolution, and the society is developing towards the last stability layer, the era of communicative self direction (as discussed above, Cornelis, 1988). Hence, we are now ready to give our own direction to the fulfillment of our existence, and are thus open to co-creation. According to Boswijk et al. (2005), the managers and employees have to create experiences in cooperation with the consumers, employees and partners, and, like Willem-Albert Bol mentioned, companies are looking for interaction. 94 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §6.2.5 Conditions for co-creation When asking about the conditions which are of importance for co-creation, we again can see a huge difference between the answers given by the marketing managers of companies, and those given by the senior managers of TBWA. The marketing managers all give answers which refer to the consumers, whereas the senior managers from TBWA answer this question with the company in mind. I think that in the process of co-creation both aspects have to be kept in mind and the combination of these answers provides a complete picture of the conditions required for co-creation. The marketing mangers suggest that a certain need has to exist in the mind of the consumer. Next to this need, there has to be a certain desire to co-create, the opportunity to co-create and an appropriate environment. The success factors for co-creation would be a certain need, a passion, and various other conditions, like believing that the final message will be displayed, the way the people appreciate a brand and the time the consumers have to spend on the co-creation process, since some aspect has to be very tempting for people to spend their time on it. The quality of the creative briefing is, according to Lukas Kreutzer, also very important, since it is crucial to inspire people because they have to be enthusiastic with regard to the planned co-creation. Creating a good briefing for a single creative team is already difficult since it has to be made both inspiring and clear, but creating a briefing for a large diversified consumer population is an even greater challenge. Companies have to be very critical when designing a cocreation message, and they have to choose their target group very carefully. In contrast to the answers listed above which all have the consumer in mind, the senior managers of TBWA answer, as already mentioned above, this question with the company in mind. According to all three senior managers of TBWA a company really has to want to know what the target group thinks and does. The co-creation process has to be target group specific, original and fit in with the rest of the external communication. With co-creation, companies have the advantage of being the first mover: if they 95 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars are the first to carry out a certain kind of action they are seen as original and innovative and people appreciate that. Companies have to make the cocreation original and special: it has to trigger the consumers in order to make them react. These managers of TBWA agree on the fact that companies have to give a good direction to their co-creation message, i.e. that they should be careful not to make it too open but at the same time to maintain a certain degree of freedom in the process. §6.2.6 Factors that contribute towards the success or the failure of a cocreation campaign As discussed in part one of this qualitative framework, co-creation can either succeed or fail. The theoretical framework and the quantitative part of this thesis offer no full explanation with regard to why some co-creation campaigns go wrong and others go right. Every co-creation has, according to all interviewees, a certain risk. In the context of co-creation you ask people what they think of your brand. Their answer could be negative, but, on the other hand, a certain degree of transparency is also appreciated nowadays, as already became apparent in the principle of Transparency derived from the DART principle introduced in the theoretical framework (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). One of the most important things is the tone of voice which a company uses to communicate. If they communicate positively and people sense the positive character, they are tempted to react in a positive manner. Companies also have to see how they are presented in the media: if, for instance, there is a scandal regarding their brand or product category, it is likely that this will be at the top of the minds of the consumers and if this is the case, it would not be smart to co-create. This could be an explanation for why the Chevy co-creation campaign was a failure (see paragraph 6.1.2). Chevy wanted to co-create in a time where the discussion of global warming and pollution was at the top of the minds of the consumers. When you have a strong brand identity you know more or less what co-creation is going to do. If, however, companies are planning to use co- 96 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars creation to reinforce their brand it is difficult to predict how the consumers will react to the brand. This might turn out alright, but could also go wrong. There are two ways to co-create according to Lukas Kreutzer: either the company controls the strategic side (like, for instance, the brand positioning) of the co-creation process strictly and they let the consumer only develop the creative side (like with the ‘Celebrate Football’ campaign, see paragraph 2.8) or they let the strategic side a little bit more loose so people can take part in the development of, for instance, the brand positioning (as exercised by Converse in the making of their new commercial: there are virtually no limits to what is possible, and what the statement is5 (www.converse.com, consulted on 08-16-2007)). This last option is obviously more risky than the first option and is more likely to go wrong. Antonie van Schendel's opinion is that this last option is not very recommendable, since companies have to realize who they are as a brand: this is not a aspect where co-creation should be performed. They first need to establish their brand identity before they can co-create. Co-creation is something totally different to the qualitative research which companies conduct when they are not sure about their brand identity and they want to ask their consumers. Converse is able to do this due to the fact that their brand identity is strong and their consumers are aware of the type of movies expected by Converse, while at the same time Converse maintains a high level of control on the actual broadcasting of the movies. They decide which movie is broadcasted and which is not. This level of control will we discussed in the following section. A risk that can be controlled, and that is mentioned by both the marketing mangers and the senior managers of TBWA, is the level of control that you have over the co-creation campaign. However, the level of interference on behalf of the company and the level of freedom from the customer’s side, in sum, have to favour the customer for a real co-creation communication process to develop. When consumers have a lot of freedom, As the website states: Create an original 24-second film based on one of the Film Topics. Show the shoe, don’t show the shoe-it’s up to you. We only ask that you keep it apolitical, positive, original and inspiring. Think of it as a short film that celebrates the spirit of Converse and the Chuck Taylor All Star shoe. 5 97 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars the company has little control and there is more risk that the co-creation campaign might go wrong. With respect to co-creation, companies always have a certain risk, but nowadays, according to the interviewed managers, they have to take that risk in order to be inventive. Companies always have to consider to which extent they are willing to give up their control. Control can be gained, for example, by rules or a by making a selection when publishing the input. As an example, the co-creation experience of Amstel’s ‘Celebrate Football’ (paragraph 2.8) did both. First of all, they gave some examples on the website on how they wanted their advertisement to look, so that the public had a general idea about what Amstel wanted. During the event there was a jury present which established some boundaries that, when crossed, would have stopped the co-creation process (boundaries like, for instance, streaking). They also selected the movies which were to be shown on the website and they chose the final message to be broadcasted. This control is for some companies necessary in order to reduce the danger, and therewith the fear that the co-creation communication might turn against them as seen in the Chevy Tahoe campaign. Not only is Chevy a good example for what bad timing can do to your campaign, but it is also an example for how the level of control can reduce or enhance the success of a campaign. In the Chevy campaign the company on one hand kept too much control by precisely providing the content, while on the other hand they had too little control by allowing every movie to be presented on the website. Although a co-creation campaign which goes wrong is of course not pleasant, all the managers agree that the results which can be derived from cocreation are worth the risk. §6.2.7 Ways of co-creation There are multiple ways of carrying out co-creation as all three senior managers of TBWA agree suggest, but what was not mentioned at all by any of the marketing mangers of the companies. In the first case of co-creation, the brand is directly in touch with the consumer, like, for instance, in the case of Caesar with their ‘I look like my dog contest’ (see appendix A). The 98 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars second way is to co-create through a theme, like, for instance, Amstel did by using the theme ‘football’ in the ‘Celebrate Football’ campaign. The third way of co-creation is through a medium, a good example of this is what Chevy did in their cooperation with the television show 'The Apprentice'. The last way of co-creation is the cooperation between two brands like, for instance, the KNVB and Ajax could do since they are in the same field of ‘products’. §6.2.8 Reasons for people to co-create The opinions on the reasons for people wanting to co-create differ with respect to the answers given by the different managers, and there is no real difference between the marketing managers from the companies and the senior managers from TBWA. The one thing that the three managers of TBWA and Tanja Manders agree on is that co-creation satisfies the exposure need of the consumers. It is a way of expressing their creativity, being given the chance to be seen and heard, and being different to the rest: it is a weak form of a kind of exhibitionism. Antonie van Schendel and Willem-Albert Bol agree in their opinion that people want to co-create partly because of the prize they can win as a reward for their contribution. According to WillemAlbert Bol, people make a change calculation. According to Lourens Kwakman, people probably co-create because they think it is an interesting new concept. In this context, he sees so-called ‘innovators’, i.e. people who are the fastest to adapt to new media and gadgets, as the most likely group of people to participate. According to Lukas Kreutzer, co-creation is for many people a platform to express their personal thoughts and feelings about certain things and share these with the world. All managers agree that the willingness to participate in co-creation has something to do with the bond that people have with a brand. They have to have a high feeling of connective involvement with the brand, it has to touch their minds and their hearts. The more emotion there is in a category, the bigger the chance that people will respond in positive manner. It also has to do with a certain theme, a certain moment, like, for instance, the emotion that people were in 99 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars at the ‘Celebrate Football’ campaign (a celebrating kind of state). This means that the product isn’t the most important factor; it is far more the experience that the product is attached to. This is in line with the opinion of Pine and Gilmore (1999) who suggest that as soon as a country reaches a certain level of prosperity the attention shifts from goods and services to ‘experiences’. Experiences are, as already mentioned in the theoretical framework, products, modes of communication, and marketing campaigns that dazzle people’s senses, touch their hearts, and stimulate their minds. They can relate to these and incorporate them into their lifestyles (Schmitt 1999). Personally, I think that the reason why people are willing to co-create has to do with all the reasons named above. I think that it differs with regard to which reason is more important than the other, because this relies on the character of the consumer. §6.2.9 Co-creation and product category When a company wants to co-create it has to take several things into account. Antonie van Schendel mentions some basic questions that a company has to ask when wanting to co-create. Who am I? How can I cocreate? Why do I want to co-create? With what product category do I want to co-create? Who is my target group? With respect to the product category, the managers are not surprised about most of the results from the quantitative research. They say that people want to co-create with personal brands and branches. The results from the quantitative part of this thesis are thus explainable because clothing, shoes and innovative products are found to be products of high interest. The categories that score low are fast-food and house supplies, which have nothing to do with image and besides this, fast-food has a lot of negative connotations that people don’t want to be associated with. With regard to house supplies the involvement in co-creation is also very low, which basically means that people don’t feel the need to co-create with something they do not really care about or see as a necessity. The 100 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars interviewed managers are, however, surprised that sport scores so low because this is a product of a fairly high interest and has proven to be suitable for co-creation in the past. The problem could be that the term ‘sport’ is just too broad. If you make it more specific, for instance co-create with Young Orange6, people can picture something with it and will maybe more willing to co-create. The fact that the government scored so high, didn’t come as a surprise to the managers. Their opinion was that the government is something that most people form an opinion about which they want to share with other people. §6.2.10 Co-creation and age Intuitively, the marketing managers thought that age did not really matter with respect to co-creation, with their opinion being that it is dependent on specific cases. However, if we look in general at the age of the target group, the three managers explain the result of the quantitative research by means of the contradiction between old and young. The willingness of the age group of 26-45 year olds to co-create might originate from their urge to state their opinion. They might also have a bigger brand loyalty in comparison to the younger age group which still shifts between brands. People 26 to 45 years of age are also more technological-savvy and might still have the drive to change things. Older people might be more hesitant to co-create due to the fact that they are more reluctant in giving out information. This can be overcome by formulating the right level of action in order to ensure that all conditions of the co-creation experience are clear. Furthermore, the older age category stems from a different generation where ‘displaying’ themselves and their opinion wasn’t as common as it is nowadays with phenomena like MySpace, Facebook and Hyves. In the case of a very personal bound cocreation concept, the managers expect that this would rather be something for the younger age groups because they have a higher need to show themselves, whereas the older age category sees this as being too personal. 6 Young Orange is the Dutch national football team for players under 24 years of age. 101 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars They also suggest that for most co-creations it is important to have at least some technological skills, something that the older age category could be lacking. §6.2.11 Co-creation and media With regard to the choice of media the managers also think that it depends on the situation, in which companies can be limited in their possibilities, due to their media budget and the reach of the target group. In general, it is not much different from ordinary media strategies: it is crucial to take into account who you are dealing with and why you are dealing with them. According to Lukas Kreutzer, a co-creation communication media strategy is, in essence, similar to a strategy developed for a promotional campaign. In both cases you want people to respond positively. It is important that the media to respond is easily accessible. The managers weren’t surprised that emails, letters and events scored so high when approaching people, due to the fact that these are all personal communication means. Although they are personal they are by no means intrusive and people can decide by themselves if they want to take notice of the information. The fact that email scores lower with the young age category is, according to Willem-Albert Bol, explainable due to the fact that this medium is, in a way, similar to the traditional letter: you write something, to somebody, about something. The younger age category tends to favor more open means of communication like, for instance, MSN or Hyves. The fact that mass media is so popular in step three is also explainable according to the managers, because mass media offer the biggest stage. Hence, it is appropriate for their urge to expose themselves. The managers were not surprised that telephone and SMS scored so low; their opinion is that those media are too intrusive and that people want to co-create according to their own personal schedule, i.e. they want to have the option to inform themselves about it and they want to have the time to think about it. 102 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §6.2.12 The future of co-creation The last thing that we will discuss in this qualitative part of the research is the added value of co-creation communication and the expected future of this concept. Tanja Manders places the co-creation communication practice in the light of the mass communication theories referring to a certain flow. Cocreation communication fits in with the whole theoretical background about the sender of the message who is supposed to be in control, followed by the receiver who has the control, the medium that controls the message and vice versa. Co-creation communication is the next step in this flow; an equilibrium between the control of the sender and the receiver. The control lies in the middle and all parties have equal power. According to all the interviewed managers, co-creation communication leaves a bigger imprint in the minds of the consumers than some other ordinary external communication means. There is a strong belief that when a brand has a bigger imprint in the minds of the consumers the effect that the brand has is also stronger. All managers say that co-creation is something from this age, and that it is an innovative way of communicating. They refer to co-creation as a new tool in the toolbox of the field of external communication, which is used now and will continue to be used in the future. Although co-creation has all the characteristics of a hype, it is nevertheless likely that it will be here to stay. 103 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars §7 Conclusion §7.1 Conclusion: Quantitative part Before we can answer the main question of this research we first have to recapitulate on the expectations of our hypotheses and compare these expectations with the actual results of the research. In accordance with our expectations stated in the hypotheses one and two, most people appreciate co-creation. However, although the majority is open towards co-creation, most of them are not sure if they would actually be willing to participate in it. Our third hypothesis became partly true. We expected that ‘written’ media and personal interaction during an event would be appreciated the highest. However, it turned out that people most appreciated an approach through a letter, an e-mail and an event. Although we expected the internet to be appreciated highly this turned out not to be the case. An internet site scored significantly lower than an approach via an e-mail, a letter, an event, and a magazine. All the different media correlate with each other, but because there are not many high correlations it is safe to say that the consumers are aware of the differences between the various media. Due to the fact that there are a large number of significant differences between the different media it is safe to say that co-creation communication depends a great deal on the media chosen to approach the consumer. Hypothesis four also became partly true, since we expected that people would be most willing to respond via e-mail and which turned out to be the case. However, we did not expect that people would also be highly willing to respond through a magazine or a paper, because they belong to the more ‘traditional’ media. We also expected that people would be willing to respond through an internet site, but it turned out that people were in fact more willing to respond through an e-mail, a letter, an event, a paper and a magazine. We can again state that people are aware of the difference between these media since not many types of media correlate highly with each other. Due to the fact that there are again such a large number of significant differences between the different media it is also safe to say in 104 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars this context that co-creation communication depends a great deal on the media chosen for the consumers to respond. With regard to the fifth hypothesis the expectations also came partly true. We expected intuitively that high-profile media would be appreciated highly, especially the television and magazines. Again, there are not many high correlations which means that people are able to differentiate between the different media. The results showed that the television, the radio and magazines are mostly appreciated in comparison to the other media. And although a billboard is also highly appreciated, it was not predicted that people would prefer an approach via radio over an approach via a billboard. Because there are a large number of significant differences between the different media, it is again safe to say that co-creation communication depends a great deal on the media chosen for the consumers to respond. The results on the product categories partly corresponded to the sixth hypothesis. The product categories that scored the highest were shoes, beverages and innovative products. Shoes, beverages7 and innovative products all reflect the image of the consumer. There are a large number of significant differences between the different product categories but, on the other hand, there are also a number of high correlations. We can predict that co-creation communication depends a great deal on the product group that the product category belongs to and to a lesser extent on the product category that the company belongs to. Despite our expectations that a younger age group would be more willing to participate in, and, at the same time, more appreciative of cocreation, it turned out that the age group 56-65 appreciates co-creation significantly higher than the age group 36-45. But in accordance with this hypothesis the results show that people in the age category 26-35 are the most open to co-creation, whereas people in the age category 56-65 are the least open to co-creation. It is remarkable that people in the age category 56-65 appreciate co-creation highly, but are least open to it. Age doesn’t play 7 Beverages are a reflection of image because, for instance, buying Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola says something about your image. Buying Heineken instead of wine says something about your personality as well. 105 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars a role in the willingness to co-create, since there were no significant differences between age groups. We also expected that print media such as letters, papers and magazines would be more appreciated by the older age categories, and that the internet, the television, the radio and billboards would be more appreciated by the younger age categories. The results show that the appreciation of media depends on each step of the co-creation communication process. Nevertheless, they have one point in common: the age group 56-65 is significantly more negative about the different media than the age groups 16-25, 26-35 and 36-45. For the age group 56-65 the appreciation of an approach via television, newspapers, magazines and by radio is significantly lower than most of the other age groups. They are also significantly more negative about the option of responding via the radio, the television, an e-mail, an internet site, newspapers and magazines, while they appreciate the company transmitting their message via the radio, the television, magazines and billboards significantly lower than most of the other age groups. With respect to the willingness to respond in relation to different product categories we can see again that the age group 56-65 is most negative about this, since they significantly show less appreciation for cocreating with the product categories food, car, clothing, internet services, innovative products, information/entertainment, shoes and health/beauty than most of the other age groups. The age groups 26-35 and 36-45 are more positive about co-creating with these product categories. The results show that age does play a role in the appreciation and the willingness of consumers for co-creation. Although the age group 56-65 appreciates co-creations the highest they are the most negative group with regard to their openness, their appreciation and willingness of different media and there willingness to participate with different product categories. With the answers of these) sub-questions in mind, we have already answered the main question of this research: ‘To what extent do people appreciate co- 106 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars creation communication and are they willing to participate in it?’ Most of the people appreciate co-creation but are not sure if they actually want to take part in it. This willingness/appreciation does, however, differ with respect to the media chosen in every step, the product category and the age of the consumer. §7.2 Conclusion: Qualitative part The success and the failure of co-creation in the two given cases can be partly explained by the factors discussed in the quantitative part of this research. The discussion of the cases, however, left certain questions on what determines the success or the failure of a co-creation campaign, and how companies can control this success or failure, unanswered. Looking at the in-depth interviews we can see that there are numerous factors that influence the co-creation concept. These in-depth interviews also delivered numerous valuable insights into co-creation communication. Co-creation is a term used for a practice that has already been carried out for a longer period of time, but that just recently has been called cocreation and is defined as a marketing tool. It is an interactive way to generate an external communication message for a brand in cooperation with the consumer. Moreover, the consumers define the brand, which means that companies have to focus on how consumers see the brand rather than how they see their own brand. Co-creation is not suitable in every situation and can also be a costly and time-consuming practice. Co-creation is a new way, but also a new reason, for companies to communicate with their consumers. Companies want to co-create to attain a better bond with the consumer, and to involve the consumer actively with the brand. Consumers are willing to co-create because they do not merely want to consume anymore. They now have an opinion about things and are willing to express that opinion. In their minds the consumers sense a certain need to express themselves. Next to this need there has to be a certain desire to cocreate, the opportunity to co-create, an appropriate environment to co-create 107 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars and a prize that they can win by participating. The willingness to co-create is also connected to the bond that people have with a brand. Consumers also have to have a high feeling of connective involvement with the brand. The success of co-creation is dependent of the quality of the creative briefing of the company, the sincerity, if a company really wants to know what the target group thinks and does, the tone of voice in which the company communicates with the consumer, and the co-creation message has to be target group specific, original and fit in with the rest of the external communication. Factors that companies have to take into account when cocreating are how they are displayed in the media, if they have a strong brand identity, and the level of control that they have over the co-creation campaign. However, the level of interference on behalf of the companies and the level of freedom from the customer’s side have to favour the customer for a real and successful co-creation communication process to take place. There are multiple ways of co-creation: the brand in direct contact with the consumer, co-creation through a theme, co-creation through a medium and co-creation through the cooperation between two brands. Looking at the influence of various factors on co-creation we can see that the product category has influence on the appreciation and willingness, since people want to co-create with personal brands and branches. The appreciation and the willingness to co-create with brands and product categories are related to image. The influence of age is only relevant with respect to the contradiction between old and young. Finally, when looking at the choice of media we see that personal communication means are appreciated highly in step one. In step three the mass media are appreciated highly due to the fact that mass media offer the biggest stage, which is appropriate for the consumers' urge to expose themselves. Telephone and SMS scored low because they are seen as being too intrusive whereas people prefer to co-create according to their own schedule, they want to have the option to gather information about it and want the time to digest it. Co-creation communication leaves a bigger imprint in the minds of the consumers than ordinary communication means. It is strongly believed that 108 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars when a brand has a bigger imprint in the minds of the consumers the effect that the brand has is also stronger. Co-creation is a new tool in the toolbox of the field of external communication and will continue to be used in the future. Hence, it is a hype that is here to stay. §8 Discussion Although this research offers some interesting results there are of course also several shortcomings. The first is that this research has cultural boundaries. It can only be generalized with regard to the Dutch population, which means that it could have produced different results in other countries. The frequencies of male and female participants and the different levels of educational weren’t evenly divided, which meant we could not make meaningful statements about these factors. Because it is a first exploratory research the results are quite broad and additional research is required to gain more meaningful insights into the specific product categories which people would be most interested in participating in the co-creation communication process. For supplementary research referring to the quantitative part of this thesis, we suggest that, due to the high correlation between the product categories, more global product categories should be created, which could be achieved by conducting a factor analysis. It could also be interesting to see if there are relations between the appreciation/willingness of the media and the three steps, if, for example, the combination of radio in step one, e-mail in step two and television in step three is more appreciated than other combinations. In addition, it would be interesting, if it turned out that there are certain media combinations that prove to be successful, to see if these media combinations can be linked with certain product categories. Concluding the discussion of quantitative part of the research, it would be interesting to see if there are certain patterns referring to the choice of media and if these patterns can be linked with the product categories or product groups. 109 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars For supplementary research referring to the qualitative part of this thesis, it would be interesting to ask the consumers open questions about their media preference, their product category preference and their overall opinion on this new external communication tool. It would also be interesting to conduct in-depth interviews with consumers who have taken part in cocreation and ask about their experience and the motives of their participation. Besides this, further research could also conduct more in-depth interviews with marketing managers who have already had more experience with co-creation, and with marketing managers who have already had negative experiences with co-creation. One could also carry out a corpus analysis of co-creation cases in order to gain a more detailed insight into this phenomenon. In addition to the previous points for further research, we would also like to pay some attention to a factor that could also influence the appreciation and willingness to co-create and which already arose in the qualitative part of this thesis, namely the role a brand plays in the appreciation and the willingness of the consumers to take part in co-creation communication. This matter should be taken into account in supplementary research. We will now use this discussion in order to introduce different aspects of ‘brand awareness’ and their possible importance influence on cocreation. A brand is something that resides in the minds of consumers. To brand a product or a service it is necessary to give consumers a label for the product and to provide the consumers with a certain meaning for the brand. Branding involves creating mental structures and helping consumers to organize their knowledge about products and services in a way that clarifies their decision-making and, in the process, is of value to the firm. The key to branding is that consumers perceive differences between brands within a product category (Keller 2003). Branding could be important for co-creation communication due to the fact that brands have are created by image or other non-product-related factors, meaning that, besides product categories, brands might also play an important role. Some brands remain stronger in 110 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars the minds of consumers than others. But does this have any effect on the willingness of the consumers to co-create? According to Antonie van Schendel, there is ‘no co-creation without a strong brand’, but is this really the case? To determine this, a so-called ‘strong’ brand needs to be defined. To define this term, it is necessary to view the manner in which a strong brand is created. According to the Customer-Based Brand Equity model, the socalled CBBE model (Keller 2002), a strong brand can be thought of in terms of a sequence of steps. These steps are shown in Figure 19. Figure 19: Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid, Keller 2002 Brand Salience is related to the brand awareness, the ability of the customer to recall and recognize the brand. Brand Performance relates to the ways in which the product or the service is attempted to meet the customers’ more functional needs. Brand Imagery deals with the extrinsic properties of the product or the service, including the ways in which the brand is attempted to meet the customers’ psychological or social needs. Brand Judgments focus on the customers’ personal opinions and evaluations with regards to the brand. Brand Feelings are the customers’ emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand. Brand Resonance has to do with the ultimate 111 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars relationship and level of identification that the customer has with the brand. It refers to the nature of this relationship and to the extent to which customers feel that they are “in sync” with the brand. Figure 20 displays the sub-dimensions of these steps. Figure 20: Sub-dimensions of Brand Building Blocks, Keller 2002 In the context of co-creation communication especially the steps of judgments and feelings are of great importance, they focus on customers’ personal opinions, evaluations, emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand. These two steps will be described in more detail here. Brand Judgments focus on customers’ personal opinions and evaluations with regards to the brand. Customers make all types of judgments with respect to a brand, but the following four types of brand judgments are particularly important: quality, credibility, considerations, and superiority. Brand Feelings are the customers’ emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand. There are six important types of brandbuilding feelings: warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval and selfrespect. 112 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars It would be interesting to see if the appreciation and the willingness to co-create is related to brand judgments and brand feelings. Keller (2002) developed a questionnaire that measures these two factors. Supplementary research could be carried out in order to determine whether or not brand judgments and feelings play an important role in co-creation In the field of co-creation there are still a number of factors that can be analyzed, and many questions that remain unanswered. 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Internet publication: http://www.theomcgroup.com/omcpapers/Eight%20Styles%20of%20FirmCustomer%20Knowledge%20Co-Creation.pdf, consulted on 04-12-07 117 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/CUSTOMER-MADE.htm, consulted on 06-16-2007 http://www.xs4all.nl/opinie/2006/12/08/co-creatie-is-een-maatschappelijkthema/, consulted 04-10-2007 http://www.converse.com/index.asp?bhcp=1#madebyyou, consulted on 0816-2007 www.interbrand.nl, consulted on 06-19-2007 118 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Appendixes Appendix A https://www.directresearch.nl/v/s.php?dummy=zondertemptabel&id=3570 Dit onderzoek gaat over 'co-creatie'. Er volgt straks een korte introductie over 'co-creatie'. Vervolgens worden er drie voorbeelden weergegeven van 'co-creatie'. Lees deze aandachtig door. Wat is co-creatie? Bij Co-creatie vragen bedrijven aan mensen of zij de reclame voor het bedrijf willen maken. Zo vragen bedrijven bijvoorbeeld soms aan hun klanten om zelf een reclamespotje te maken, de naam van een nieuw product te bedenken of om een foto te maken die later in een advertentie wordt gebruikt. Deze trend is sinds 2004 al in opkomst en vindt steeds vaker plaats. De reden waarom bedrijven willen dat hun klanten meedoen aan co-creatie is omdat mensen dan actief met het merk bezig zijn en de reclame echt laat zien hoe mensen over een merk denken. Co-creatie bestaat uit drie stappen; Stap 1: Bedrijven benaderen mensen om te vragen of ze willen co-creëren. Stap 2: Mensen gaan hierop in en maken of bedenken iets. Dit geven ze vervolgens terug aan het bedrijf. Stap 3: Het bedrijf gebruikt wat de mensen hebben gemaakt in hun reclame. Om het nog iets verder uit te leggen volgen nu drie voorbeelden van co-creatie. Voorbeeld 1: Centraal Beheer Achmea; ‘Win je eigen Gouden Loeki!’ 119 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Bij de actie ‘Win je eigen Gouden Loeki’ konden mensen hun eigen reclame opsturen die daarna gebruikt werd op televisie als reclame voor Centraal Beheer Achmea. De reclame moest wel grappig zijn en dezelfde slogan hebben als de rest van de reclames; ‘Even Apeldoorn bellen’. Uit ruim achthonderd inzendingen werd het idee van de Amsterdammer Frans van Gerwen uitgekozen en werd samen met Van Gerwen het filmpje gemaakt. (FILMPJE) Voorbeeld 2: Doritos; ‘You name the flavour’ Doritos gaf mensen de mogelijkheid de naam voor hun nieuwste smaak te bepalen. Mensen konden suggesties insturen, en de suggestie waar het meest op werd gestemd werd vervolgens de nieuwste naam van Doritos. Uiteindelijk werd het de naam ‘GeenStijl’. Voorbeeld 3: Cesar; ‘I look like my dog’ Bij de wedstrijd ‘I look like my dog’ konden mensen foto’s insturen van henzelf en hun hond. De bedoeling was dat de mensen een foto opstuurden waarop zij erg op hun hond leken. De beste inzendingen werden daarna gebruikt in de reclamecampagne. 120 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Hieronder volgt de vragenlijst over co-creatie. Het belangrijkste onderscheid in deze vragenlijst is waardering en bereidheid. Waardering staat voor in hoeverre u iets gunstig beoordeelt. Bereidheid betekent dat u bereid bent om ergens aan mee te werken. Wanneer u dus wel iets waardeert, bent u niet altijd bereid er aan mee te werken. Zo kunt u bijvoorbeeld de Cesar reclame waarderen omdat u hem misschien leuk of origineel vindt, maar zou u bijvoorbeeld nooit zelf een foto opsturen omdat u geen 'honden-mens' bent, u Cesar geen leuk merk vindt of omdat u niet zo graag met uw eigen gezicht in een advertentie wilt komen. 121 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Heeft u al eens aan co-creatie gedaan met een bedrijf of organisatie? Ja Nee In hoeverre staat u open voor co-creatie met een bedrijf of organisatie? Open Niet open Co-creatie lijkt mij: Eens Deels eens Neutraal Leuk Interessant Leerzaam Spannend Grappig Aantrekkelijk Saai Geef uw mening over de volgende stelling: Ik zou best willen meewerken aan co-creatie Helemaal niet Niet Misschien Wel Helemaal wel De volgende vragen gaan over de drie stappen van co-creatie. Deze vraag gaat over stap 1: 122 Deels oneens Oneens Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Een bedrijf benadert u om te vragen of u mee wilt werken aan co-creatie. In hoeverre waardeert u het als een bedrijf u voor co-creatie zou benaderen via één van de volgende kanalen? 1 = Niet waarderen 2 3 5 = Zeer waarderen 4 De radio De televisie De e-mail Een geschreven brief Een persoonlijke toenadering op een evenement Een internet site (in de vorm van een banner, advertentie) In hoeverre waardeert u het als een bedrijf u voor co-creatie zou benaderen via één van de volgende kanalen? 1 = Niet waarderen 2 3 5 = Zeer waarderen 4 Een internet weblog De SMS De telefoon De krant Een tijdschrift Billboards De volgende vraag gaat over stap 2: Stel u vindt het leuk om mee te werken aan co-creatie, en u gaat reageren. In hoeverre bent u tot co-creatie bereid, als u via één van de onderstaande media kunt reageren? 1 = Niet bereid 123 2 3 4 5 = Zeer bereid Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars De radio (bijv. het maken en insturen van een eigen radio-spotje) De televisie (bijv. het maken en insturen van een eigen tv-spotje) De e-mail Een geschreven brief Een persoonlijk gesprek op een evenement Een internet site (in de vorm van een banner, advertentie) Nogmaals, in hoeverre bent u tot co-creatie bereid, als u via één van de onderstaande media kunt reageren? 1= Niet bereid 2 3 4 5 = Zeer bereid Een internet weblog De SMS De Telefoon De krant (bijv. een eigen advertentie maken) Een tijdschrift (bijv. een eigen advertentie maken) De volgende vraag gaat over stap 3: Het bedrijf gebruikt wat u heeft gemaakt/verzonnen in hun reclame. In hoeverre waardeert u het als het bedrijf uw bijdrage gebruikt voor één van de volgende zaken? 1 = Niet waarderen Een radiocommercial Een televisiecommercial Een e-mail Een geschreven brief Een persoonlijk gesprek of uitnodiging op een evenement 124 2 3 4 5 = Zeer waarderen Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Een internet site (in de vorm van een banner, advertentie) Nogmaals, in hoeverre waardeert u het als het bedrijf uw bijdrage gebruikt voor één van de volgende zaken? 1 = Niet waarderen 2 3 5 = Zeer waarderen 4 Een internet weblog Een SMS Een Telefonisch gesprek Een krantenadvertentie Een tijdschriftadvertentie Billboards Bent u bij de volgende producten of diensten bereid tot medewerking aan co-creatie? 1 = Niet bereid 2 3 5 = Zeer bereid 4 Bank (bv. ING, ABN AMRO, SNS) Overheid (bv. Postbus 51, Belastingdienst, NS) Dranken (bv. Coca Cola, Heineken, Nescafe) Fastfood (bv. Mac Donalds, Burger King, KFC) Huis benodigdheden (bv. Omo, Page, Colgate) Gezondheid en schoonheid (bv. Nivea, Axe, Andrelon) Kleding en schoeisel (bv. Nike, Ralph Lauren) Nogmaals, bent u bij de volgende producten of diensten bereid tot medewerking aan cocreatie? 1 = Niet bereid Informatie en Vermaak (bv. RTL5, De Volkskrant, Radio 538) 125 2 3 4 5 = Zeer bereid Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Sporten (bv. KNVB, Formule 1, Hockey) Innovatieve producten (bv. Apple, Motorola, Philips) Internet diensten (bv. Google, YouTube, Yahoo ) Kleding (bv. Levis, Louis Vuitton, H Automerken (bv. Toyota, Mercedes, BMW) Eten (bv. Kellogg's, Danone, Heinz) Tenslotte volgen er nog drie achtergrondvragen. Wat is uw geslacht? Man Vrouw Wat is uw leeftijd? Jonger 15 16 - 25 jaar 26 - 35 jaar 36 - 45 jaar 46 - 55 jaar 56 - 65 jaar 65+ Wat is uw hoogstgenoten opleiding? Lager opgeleid (lo/lbo/vmbo/mavo) Middelbaar opgeleid (MBO/HAVO/VWO) 126 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Hoger opgeleid (hbo/universiteit) 127 Master thesis-Co-creation communication Dominique de Thouars Appendix B Kwalitatief onderzoek - Heeft u wel eens van co-creatie gehoord? (uitleg co-creatie, incl. de drie stappen) - Wie zijn volgens u het meest geschikt om mee te co-creëren? - Is dit leeftijdsafhankelijk? - Is dit afhankelijk van het geslacht? - Is het afhankelijk van de productcategorie? - Is het afhankelijk van het merk? - Heeft u wel eens gekozen om met de consumenten te cocreëren?Waarom wel/niet? Zo ja; - Wat heeft u precies gedaan? (Media etc.) - Waarom heeft u hiervoor gekozen? - Wat waren de verwachtingen? - Hoe beviel deze ervaring? - Hoe waren de resultaten? - Zou u het in de toekomst nog een keer doen? Zo nee; - Zou u in de toekomst dit wel willen doen? Waarom wel/niet? - Met welke media zou u voorkeur uitgaan om dit te doen? Verschilt dit per stap? - Zo ja; Welk medium voor stap 1. 2 en 3? - Wie zou u hiermee willen bereiken? - Wat zou u hiermee willen bereiken? 128