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Co-Create London – Top 10 Ideas So Far!

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Co-Create London has been live for exactly 10 days and thus far we are ecstatic about the results! As this is being written we have received 249 ideas from 191 people and a staggering 2,219 votes have been cast!!!

We thought we would let you know what’s been going on over at CoCreateLondon.com, starting with the Top 10 ideas on the site so far as voted for by Co-Create London users.

1) Free Wi-Fi hotspots in public spaces across town – 127 votes
Free WiFi access seems to be something that Londoners want to see in the city. However there has been some backlash to this with other users asking – how would WiFi make London a better place?

2) Open library-style book kiosks/ book swap system in Tube stations so Londoners are never without reading material on the underground! – 63 votes
Bringing some culture & entertainment to the transport system is something that has been a running theme on the site. This idea has been the pick of the bunch with a strong backing from Co-Create London users.

3) Oyster Card becomes Oyster London card – pay for anything in London up to the value of 20GBP – 58 votes
A few users have been quick to say that this idea has already been explored by TFL but didn’t go ahead due to financial regulation complications. However, making it only for small payments adds in a new angle and would encourage spending.

Could it be used for other purchases beside travel?

4) Tube Tunnels as giant immersive flipbooks. We all travel miles & miles underground everyday through black tunnels. The Tube carriages have all got amazing windows to look outside of the train at… well, nothing. Wouldn’t it be nice if the walls of the tunnels were covered in series of pictures that vary gradually from one to the next, so that when the trains goes through the tunnel they get animated? – 56 votes
A new model for artists, creative types, brands and advertisers to get involved with. Would brighten up millions of Londoners journey to work but is it feasible?

5) Simply by putting air conditioning on the tubes would improve life in London during the Summer 100% – 56 votes
Boris has introduced air conditioning on the circle line and, as some Co-Creators have noted, there have been cut backs on energy use in stations to reduce heat but is it even possible for there to be a totally cool tube?

6) Annual Open Labs Day…Similar to Open House Weekend, but celebrates our city’s vast and under-appreciated science culture. The public get to question real scientists in working labs, and explore London’s scientific history (Darwin, Newton, Hooke, Faraday, Franklin, Jenner, Davy, Maxwell…) through open days at places like the Royal Society, Royal Institution etc. – 54 Votes
Exposing and helping the public understand the great scientific significance and heritage London has is a great idea! Could be amazing with the right marketing behind it, but will it get backing from Boris?

Boris has unveiled air-conditioned tubes on the circle line but can he do this for the whole of the tube system??

7) A swimming lane system on Oxford Street, people who want to walk slowly and browse you walk on the inside of the pavement (nearest the shops), people who have got to go places and are in a hurry walk on the outside (nearest the road). This would stop all the pushing, shoving, barging, dodging, frustration, pain etc that walking on Oxford Street causes!! – 49 votes
The human congestion on Oxford Street causes frustration for thousands. The new crossing at Oxford Circus has been a success so why not go one step further and create a manageable, easy and beneficial system for the rest of the street?

8 ) Turn Empty Shops in to spaces for performance, places to learn a new skill and mini-markets for creative local residents to sell their wares. – 46 votes
It is no secret that there are lots of empty retail spaces in London, especially after the recession. Why not do something positive with this free space? Giving it back to the community could help regenerate areas and encourage potential buyers.

9) Instead of the Oyster machines making the same beeping noise when you go through, each one has a different musical note, such as a piano key. – 45 votes
Would a series of these small, fun and quirky ideas cheer up commuters and make travelling in the city more fun? The users on the Co-Create London site seem to think so!

Outdoor dancing, big in China, could it be introduced in London???

10) Encourage more frequent outdoor dancing – 412votes
China and Japan have been doing it for years, it is hard to imagine Londoners getting involved though. Would be amazing if the right scheme was set up!

Throughout this week we will be running through some of our favourite ideas and releasing more information about the journey Co-Create London is about to go on!

What Would You Do To Make London A Better Place?

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The Creatives Role in Co-Creation

Friday, March 5th, 2010

In the spirit of co-creation and the core value of openness that comes with it I welcome wholeheartedly Lucian Camp’s thoughts regarding The Co-creation Hub. However I would like to counter some of them as well as try to enlighten him on the benefits co-creation brings to creativity and to the marketing process as a whole so that he will bring his experience and talent to bear on what we are trying to achieve.

He is right to highlight some of the very real concerns many people in the creative community have regarding co-creation. Indeed it is easy to look upon it as a process that makes creative people redundant and worse, fails to recognise the high esteem with which clients hold creativity and creative departments. But this is to misunderstand the nature of co-creativity. It’s not about dinosaurs versus trailblazers, it’s about a new way to find truly innovative and compelling creative solutions to clients’ problems and by the very nature of creative people we should all be open to new processes and approaches.

The good news is that as a Hub we have been engaging in this debate for a while and generally speaking we have been able to carry both people internally and externally with us on our journey. And there are three important reasons for this. (more…)

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Face: A Co-Created History – Part 3

Friday, March 5th, 2010

In the later stages of 2009 it was becoming clearer and clearer that research, innovation and planning should and could work together in a tighter environment. A continuous process needed to be adopted, as opposed to one based on silos; and consumers should sit in the heart of this process.

This idea was the seed for our hugely popular and controversial presentation, Do Brands Really Need Agencies. Within a packed room at London’s Groucho Club, brand managers and agency people ascended to listen to what this new adaptive approach could do for the industry. One of the agencies taking part in the conversation at the Groucho Club was our office mates and advertising gurus, Farm!

Farm agreed that the industry needed a shake up and that for brands and agencies to really understand the needs and wants of their consumers they would need to work with them, not at them.

Do Brands Need Agencies? | Face Forum, Nov 09

In November 2009 we worked closely with Farm to help Skinny Cow develop ideas and create their latest advertising campaign – ‘Oh Yes You Can’. The collaboration took place online within Mindbubble and face-to-face with members of the brand team, Farm creatives and Mindbubble ladies all under the guidance of our robust methodology.

After the experience of collaborating and co-creating with Farm, we started to talk about how this partnership could become a permanent yet agile business model. Here the idea for the Co-Creation Hub was born and a new way of doing things began to take shape.

After hours of meetings, arguments, laughter and much deliberation The Co-Creation Hub London was brought to life. The Hub is a collective of organisations, academics and individuals who passionately believe in doing things ‘with’ people rather than ‘at’ people.

The Founding Members of The Co-Creation Hub, London

Alongside Face the other founding members of the Co-Creation Hub London are Farm, the advertising agency, which has co-created communications for Nestle’s Skinny Cow; Opticomm, the media planning agency; Touch of Mojo, the brand design agency; and thrudigital, the social media development agency. And, they are actively looking for organisations and individuals from different fields that share their way of thinking, to get involved and help develop the co-creation movement.

Andrew Needham, founding partner of Face, as well as group managing partner of Tangible Group London, a core division of Cello Group Plc, is one of the key instigators of The Hub:

“The Co-creation Hub – London recognises that social media isn’t simply another channel; it has fundamentally changed the way consumers interact with brands. We need a more collaborative, adaptive and continuous model of marketing – one that is based on the core co-creation principle of doing things with people not at them. We call it Adaptive Brand Planning. It is a model that will ultimately be better placed in helping our clients deal with the advent of social brands”

The Hub’s belief that great ideas can come from anywhere means there are huge untapped resources out there that can flourish in a co-creative environment. The Hub is looking for organisations and individuals from as diverse a field as possible who share the same co-creation driven way of thinking, whether that’s a manufacturer, an artist, a school or even a government.

The launch of the Hub coincides with the release of Axe Twist, the first 100% co-created product. In July 2008 we co-created with 16 core Axe consumers from the US & the UK to create a new fragrance based around ‘freshness’. The workshop, which took place in New York, was a huge success and saw the idea behind the product (a fragrance that changes from day to night), the name and the actual fragrance itself co-created. Twist hit the shelves in late 2009 and early signs are that it is performing well in the market.

The Co-Creation Hub is the next chapter in Face’s collaborative history and is set to be as innovative, fresh, open and disruptive as the last one.

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The Future Planning

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

“The ad industry establishment can no longer simply tweak its offering around the edges if it is to cope. 2010 must be the year to begin a head on overhaul of the way the (advertising) business is organized” Claire Beale Editor of Campaign Magazine, January 2010

The global marketing landscape has changed more in the last 5 years than in the last 50 but that the leading agencies in terms of the way they are organized, structured and the service they offer, haven’t.

The main driver for this change has been the rise of empowered consumers. They have exposed the traditional advertising agency model as one that is out of date and struggling to help clients deal with the current consumer landscape.

“The fact is: consumers now control brands. They play with them, reshape them and even imbue them with new meaning. In the next decade, we will see a shift away from the traditional branding model of agencies and clients” Owen Lee, Creative Chairman Farm

The big question on everyone’s lips is how should the advertising and planning industry respond? What is the new model of marketing that will ensure as an industry we can help brands to navigate their way through the new consumer landscape? These questions apply as much to the brands as to the agencies that serve them. If we wanted to be sensationalist we would say that “brands and agencies must adapt or die” or putting it in a more positive way that the brand and agency leaders of the future will need to be fleet-of-foot and structure their businesses to function in a highly fluid way.

As research, brand and communications people we always felt we wanted to get closer to consumers, but for practical reasons were not able to no matter how creative we were. But now that’s all changing. Social media allows us to listen to consumers and monitor the conversations they are having around brands in real time. This offers valuable insight and understanding, but more importantly identifies opportunities to establish a completely new way for brands to engage with their audiences. The challenge for the industry is not to view social media as a channel, but to use it to facilitate collaborations between brands and consumers to innovate and co-create communications more effectively. It has heralded:

The Advent of Social Brands
New social media tools will help brands to be on 24/7: this is part of what we call “the socialisation of brands” where campaign and channel marketing gives way to “continuous brand engagement marketing”. The environment the brand lives and breathes in is always on and is always changing so brands need to be listening to and observing their consumers not just in communities but also on the web as well as involving them on a continuous basis in everything they do.

The Need for Big Social Ideas
“Big ideas” need to be a big SOCIAL ideas – one that has the power to live and breathe through what consumers do with it in their interactions with each other and the brand. A big social idea has to be able to evolve, adapt and gain new meaning through those consumer interactions. Ultimately this requires agencies and brands to embrace a more open creative approach based on the philosophy that ideas can come from anywhere: a new model which combines the creativity of experts with the creativity of consumers so that more big social ideas of better quality can be produced. This means experts have an even bigger role to play than ever before. Our recent case study with Nestle’s Skinny Cow where we co-created the advertising with Mindbubble women is a good one – in three months there are already 41,000 fans on Facebook.

The Need to be Fast, Adaptive and Continuous
The process needs to change as well; the annual planning cycle making way for real-time planning which allows brands to remain relevant and interesting to changing consumer needs, overall a more fluid, highly responsive and iterative way of planning, which we call Adaptive Brand Planning. The new imperative will be to maintain a dialogue with your consumers to harness their opinions and ideas to fine-tune your product and communications. One of the main benefits of this approach is the speed with which you can develop concepts and communications as shown by our recent work with Unilever and Axe/Lynx Twist.

Consumer Communities Will Reign
The focus on the 30 second TV spot will give way to the content and conversations that are being generated by consumers and between consumers around the brand. This will in turn produce different segmentation models where brands see consumers not just as potential customers who want to buy something from them but as people who want to have a relationship with them. Engaging and managing brand fan bases will be key: developing creative ways for engaging and managing fan bases will be critical.

A New Planning Mindset
The planner of the future will be more interested in how people interact, and how to stimulate those interactions. The sage-like planners will be replaced by people who are comfortable working in tightly knit teams of agency planners, each with their area of specialism such as social media or building and harnessing the power of communities. The line between planner and researcher will become blurred because there will be a constant dialogue with consumers that will offer insight, understanding and ideas in real time. A key part of the task will be to observe and spot these insights and ideas and use them to inspire creative experts to build upon them.

Conclusion
Consumers will be treated in a fundamentally different way. They will be given more responsibility and will be more involved throughout the brand marketing process. Co-creating with consumers as direct and active equals to deliver a range of marketing outputs will be a major part of the marketing model. Also the new generation of planners will treat consumers in a fundamentally different way. The gaming generation of young planners will be comfortable in this fast changing environment, where remaining in constant contact with your audience is more important than one-off research interventions. These planners will be the architects of a new contract between brand and consumer, founded on listening, understanding, adapting and co-creating.

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Face: A Co-Created History – Part 1

Monday, March 1st, 2010

This story begins in 2004, a year when 120 million Americans voted George Bush Jnr into government for a second term, The Lord of The Rings: Return of the King won 11 Oscars, Ireland introduced the smoking ban and a small start-up called Face started to get going.

In 2004 participating in social media was not a widespread activity, early adopters and young people were the groups pushing the format forward and exploring its possibilities. In its early days we were helping brands stay close to young people and therefore close to the ensuing high paced changes in on-line behaviour they were leading.

Skip forward three years and in May 2007 we proudly launched the first ever co-creation community, Headbox.com. Headbox was the result of spending loads of time with young people, researching their habits and ultimately understanding the way they interact with each other and with brands.

At the time there were no on-line qualitative research platforms for any category, let alone youth, the driving force behind the internet. In 2007 social media was beginning to reach its massive potential and the world of research needed to react. By offering clients a way into the minds of young people it opened up a more collaborative and mutual relationship between consumers and brands.

Headbox in 2007!

This was an extremely exciting time for us; working in a more concerted and creative way was being adopted as a philosophy. It was the beginning of the co-creation driven approach that would define the company, although the term co-creation was not being used just yet!

It was whilst presenting our second annual TechTribe report at the 2007 MRS Youth Conference when the real turning point came. The Axe team had seen our presentation and were interested in the approach. Axe wanted to engage with their consumers more closely and involve them in every step of the marketing process.

It was here at the 2007 MRS Youth Conference that co-creation was first put forward to a client brave and willing enough to try something new.

A few months later in the heat of Alicante, Spain, 16 young, creative Axe consumers from Headbox took part in Face’s first big co-creation project. Working alongside the Face and Axe team their task was to co-create an Axe Summer Variant.

Our first Co-Creation Project with Lynx was a great success

The co-creation workshop and co-creative approach was an instant success. By the end of 2007 we had co-created with Axe again on the infamous Dark Temptation ‘Chocolate Man’ variant as well as completing a co-creation project with Rexona, developing a new variant with their female consumers.

Next up… Part 2: 2008 and the birth of Mindbubble

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Axe Twist – An Entirely Co-Created Product

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

It’s with great pride that the Face team would like to announce that Axe’s latest deodorant, Twist, is an entirely co-created product! Using our online communities and co-creation process, Axe worked alongside consumers at every step of the marketing journey.

The Twist project began in early 2008, the initial steps of the process involved around 50 members of Headbox taking part in an online community. A smaller crack team of Headboxers from the US, the UK and South America were then selected to take part in a co-creation workshop. The agenda for the workshop, which took place in the Summer of 2008 in a very sunny New York City, was to co-create a new Axe variant that had ‘freshness’ as the key characteristic. The Headbox consumers worked for alongside members of the Axe team, the fragrance house, perfumers, Axe’s creative agencies and Face on various different concepts.

At the end of the 2 days the outcome was Twist – a fragrance that changes throughout the day.

Consumers Co-Creating in NYC

David Cousino, Unilever Consumer Marketing Insight (CMI) director, explains, “The Twist concept was born from the insight provided by our consumers that girls get bored easily and the real challenge is to keep them interested, or ‘hooked’. Using co-creation at such an early stage enabled us to engage with our target audience in a meaningful way, and deliver a new product suited to their needs and wishes.”

“In addition to invaluable consumer insight, this methodology gave us the added benefit of a much more efficient development process. By engaging key functions all at once, we were able to develop within only ten weeks a concept that had collaborative input from the fragrance experts, marketing team and creative agency,” adds Cousino

The Twist concept was then taken back online and fed into Headbox for testing and refinement. The completely collaborative approach meant that Unilever knew it would be well-received by consumers – something borne out by exceptional test scores and good initial response in its first launch market. The product has been launched in the UK and is being rolled out to the US, other European countries and Latin America.

Twist in the press:

More information on Axe Twist:

Video Case Study:

Client View – Why Co-Creation Delivers Better Results from Face Group on Vimeo.

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Join Us @ The Launch of The Co-Creation Hub, 18th March

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

To celebrate the launch of the Co-Creation Hub London, Face, alongside the other members of The Hub, will be hosting the inaugural members open evening.

The Co-Creation Hub – London is the first place to bring the principles of co-creation to all stages of the marketing process, and is founded on three key tenets:

1. Constant consumer involvement throughout the entire marketing planning and brand communications process – maintaining a continuous dialogue with consumers; harnessing their ideas and opinions to develop better products and communications and adapting to their changing needs and tastes in real-time.

2. A continuous process, with no end points as the communication is constantly building and evolving. A fluid way of working with a tightly knit team of agency specialists, seamlessly pulsing in and out of the process, as and when required.

3. Creating communities and fan-bases, and constantly communicating with them, online and offline.

Taking place on the 18th March at the Design Council in Convent Garden the event is your chance to find out more about The Hub and meet us all in person.

As it is an open invite anyone can attend, there is a maximum capacity though, so if you would like to reserve your place on the guest-list please Click Here

It promises to be a great night and we look forward to seeing you there!!

To find out more about The Co-Creation Hub London, Click Here

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The Co-Created World of Warcraft

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Myriam Davidovici-Nora is a researcher at Telecom Paristech engineer school in Paris. She studies online consumption, production and new business models to supply digital contents. In her latest paper The D ynamics of Co-Creation in the Video Game Industry: The Case of World of Warcraft she explores the dynamics of co-creation in the construction of video games, using World of Warcraft as a case study.

For the neophytes, World of Warcraft is a Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMPORG) created by Blizzard in 2004. Currently it has 11.5 million subscribers, and owns 62% of the MMORPG market. The great innovation Blizzard introduced when releasing World of Warcraft (WoW) was the ability for its users to improve the game.

WoW In a nutshell: When players subscribe (and agree to pay a monthly fee) they create a character and join an entirely online world. They then evolve in this environment by either, completing quests and killing computer-controlled monsters (Player versus Environment or PvE), or they can fight against each other (Player versus Player or PvP). They gain experience, money and objects (looted from the kills’ drops) and they can improve their character, trading and gearing up. Players can also join groups; these groups are composed of a very precise set of players with different skills and roles (tank, healer or Damage per seconds).

Christmas is Celebrated in the Game

WoW’s main point of difference and strength is the large after-game life with the community on and offline, the adaptability of the game allows players to constantly adapt the interface with third-party built add-ons.

Blizzard’s strategy involved players from the very beginning of the WoW adventure, inviting users to test the game on closed Beta. They also outsourced specific design and innovation tasks to consumers: they provide players with toolkits to build and test their add-ons directly in the game, thus enhancing user experience and loyalty to the game.

This innovation process has a dual benefit: it helps WoW to ascertain a great understanding of its consumers and plan the right upgrades, as well as offering a very segmented gaming experience that meets every gamers’ need, from casual to hardcore.

To facilitate the innovation process, WoW is built on a double-layered organisation mixing private and collective incentives. The first layer is a community of add-on developers, under an open source software (OSS) development model, and the second layer is the private firm, Blizzard, that privately develops the gameplay under copyright terms.

Why do player develop add-ons for WoW?

The motivation is collective-centred: killing the final boss (that ugly big monster at the end of a mission) requires in-game information management (life, mana, aggressiveness or aggro, hit rate etc..) both at individual and group level, and the use of adequate and common tools, provided by add-ons… developed by the users themselves.

Two major communities are sharing the add-on market: Curse and WowAce. These communities help developers and users to share add-ons, information, feedback and screenshot in a virtuous circle of innovation. To increase the network, the two sites are sharing a common library of commands. These add-ons are downloaded for free from the community website, thus by peer-to-peer (P2P) which considerably increase both downloading efficiency and awareness of the brand (word of mouth).

Some Potential Co-Creators at Blizzcon

Blizzard’s model is based on a constant innovation of gameplay to maintain the attractiveness for WoW’s high-level players. Across the last upgrades and patches, Blizzard deployed several bug fixes, added new festivities (special days such as Halloween or Christmas are celebrated in WoW), or new features like the Achievement System (“horizontal” rewarding system across all the “vertical” activities such as missons). Another important leverage tool to keep high-level players engaged is the opening of new realms. These types of changes are implemented according to the players’ feedback, either through the online community directly linked to the Blizzard offices or during the Blizzcon – a massive annual convention for the fans.

However, Blizzard actively controls actions and monitors the site with Game Moderators and employees involved in the game. The company focuses on any artificial increase in the economy of the game, server instability and access of a third party player to one’s account. Add-ons like bots (automated programs) or script like one-click actions are forbidden. The transaction of WoW content for real money via eBay or a personal website is prohibited (even though common practice unfortunately) and Blizzard reserves the rights to close account of unscrupulous players with no warning.

In her paper, Myriam Davidovici-Nora gives an incredible insight into this new hybrid innovation model that developed the world most famous video game. It’s not only a great read for any WoW lover who wants to understand the conception of the game, but also an amazing case-study of the innovation and co-creation process.

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Do Cultural Differences Impact International Co-Creation?? Part 1: Introducing The Project

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

I have been working amongst the busy bodies at Face for around six months now and am still enjoying it just as much as my first week! Working at Face for one year is part of my Business Studies with Marketing degree, in September I will be going back to student life at Brighton University to complete my fourth and final year. Whilst looking after the logistics at Face co-creation workshops and helping with the recruitment of co-creators for new projects, I will also be busy working on my dissertation!

The aim of my dissertation is to investigate how a key issue/problem of the market research industry is influencing Face.

Face performed extremely well in 2009 and their client base, range of products offered and team are all still growing rapidly! This growth has been largely due to new clients and brands that require international as well as UK based co-creation communities and workshops. Evidently, as Face grows they are being requested to work on a larger variety of briefs, including projects across a range of countries with varied cultures. I will be exploring this topic in my dissertation as it would be beneficial for Face to know how different cultures influence the outputs of co-creation. Therefore, the title that of my dissertation is, wait for it…. ‘How Do Diverse Cultures Influence The Outputs Of Co-Creation?’

Whilst carrying out my initial research, I found plenty of information on how the market research industry is affected by different cultures but I found virtually nothing about how cultural diversity affects co-creation. Initially, I will analyse the principles behind market research in countries across the globe and then apply these theories to co-creation using Face case studies. I will then identify ways to measure the success of online communities and co-creation workshops, using a specific set of KPI. This will then lead to recommendations that seek to improve the international co-creation process further – these may be small practical factors or larger ideas that concentrate on taking cultural differences into account when co-creating abroad.

It will be interesting, from a student and a company perspective, to see how people of different cultures react to being open,(and) being innovative with brands and co-creating. All of these factors play a key role in contributing to the success of a project. My report will explore how Face can keep co-creators engaged and how they can adapt their process further to better fit the culture of the country in which co-creation is taking place. This will ensure that Face’s future international projects are just as successful as of all their previous ‘First Class’ projects!

I am currently finding some interesting information about market research and cultural differences but I’m saving this up to share with you in my next blog!

Katherine

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Headbox’s Top 10 for 2010

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Over the course of January & Feburary Headbox listed their Top 10 Things To Look Forward To In 2010. Some of them were big things, some of them were small things and some of them are just… well, things. Check out all 10 below!

(Note, this is in chronological order of how they were posted, not an actual ranking!)

1# Hot Chip
2009 was a quiet year for the London quintet, finishing their world tour in February before hitting the studio to record their 4th album One Life Stand. In December the band released the first single from the album and announced that they will be hitting the road on another world tour kicking off in February 2010…[READ MORE]

2# Inception
Christopher Nolan is the man who can do wrong. Making his big break in 2000 with backwards murder mystery Memento, Nolan has gone on to direct a string of blockbusters making him one of the most sought after men in Hollywood…[READ MORE]

3# The World Cup
Yes we know it’s obvious but, come on, there hasn’t been a UK representative in a big international football tournament since 2006! Luckily for all of us in England (sorry Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and… the robbed… Republic of Ireland!) The Three Lions cruised through the qualifiers and will be taking part in the big one… [READ MORE]

4# Politics
Politics? Why, why, why, would anyone ever look forward to politics?? Well… allow us to explain: In 2010 a General Election is inevitable, if you’re 18+ you will have the opportunity to get out there and vote for who you want to lead Great Britain for the next four years... [READ MORE]

5# Lego Universe
Lego in its original format was simple stuff, you bought it, you unpacked it, you stuck it together, you built stuff, you smashed it and you put it back in the box. Nowadays though, Lego is so much more than Pirate Ships and Petrol Stations. There are tonnes of Lego products including video games, Bionics, Architecture, Exoforce and even Lego Sponge Bob Square Pants… [READ MORE]

6# William Tempest
Fashion is an ever changing beast, it never sleeps, it never sits still, it is forward thinking and always built for the future, hence why its seasons are the wrong way round! The fashion world is driven by designers whose job it is to look to the future and identify what people will want to wear in it. So, to be seen as the next big thing in fashion is kind of a big deal... [READ MORE]

7# 3DTV
The phrase “3D is coming to your living room” was being bandied around freely by the likes of Panasonic, LG, Samsung and Sony at the International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month. 3DTV has been on the technology radar for years now but despite the hype it is set to be more of an extension to High Definition TV… [READ MORE]

8# Project Natal
Even though Nintendo’s brightly coloured, family friendly games did everything to hide it, the release of the Wii was a landmark in home video gaming. The Wii’s wireless, 3 dimensional hand held control system allows users to play a more active part in games, a first for any home gaming system. The Wii is really cool but essentially, it’s just a starting point for motion in video games…[READ MORE]

9# No More Recession
Throughout the latter part of 2008 and the whole of 2009 there was one thing that dominated headlines… the stupid, stupid, idiot face Recession. Now there is no point in going into all the negatives about the worst global economic crisis of our generation. Instead let’s use this time to take a positive approach and celebrate the fact that, technically, it’s over!…[READ MORE]

10# Co-Creation
Our very drawn out top 10 of 2010 comes to its conclusion with Co-Creation. Now Co-Creation is something that is very close to Headbox’s heart, it is the process that our community is built around and it is what makes us a little bit different from everybody else. Co-Creation is the act of involving people in the marketing process…[READ MORE]

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Face 2010: From The Rebirth of Insight, to The Death of PowerPoint

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

At Face we don’t like standing still; partly because we are always looking to improve and do things better, and partly because as the world changes we need to change with it. 2010 will be no different, and we are bursting with new ideas for products, communities & projects. Here are our predictions about the research & innovation business in 2010, and a sneak preview of some of the things Face will be up to.

1. 2010 the year when research goes truly mobile as smart phones become commonplace and research on the go starts to catch up

Face will be developing a smart phone application that allows us to conduct research more effectively on the go and in real time

2. The year when the research industry embraces & empowers consumers as researchers, to truly reach the parts that researchers cannot reach – peer2peer research shows what the industry looks like turned inside out.

Through our communities Headbox & Mindbubble we are training consumers to act as researchers within their own peer groups going undercover and asking the questions we didn’t even know we needed to ask.

3. The year when Tech Research & Innovation begins to learn from FMCG research in terms of innovation and product development. Why? Because the consumer is now the subject & not the object of technology.

Face is launching our own tech community in 2010, aimed at engaging tech leaders in insight and innovation work

4. The year that social media & the web as a source of insight is finally taken seriously. Everyone wakes up to the fact that the greatest source of data is around us all the time – it’s just a case of harnessing it. No more excuses.

Face launches 2 new real time research products – Pulsar Snapshot & Pulsar Tracker – designed to monitor and analyse conversations and interactions around brands & categories in real time.

5. Co-creation & communities go east – increased confidence in the methodologies takes them firmly out of the west and into Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia & South Pacific

Face is launching community platforms & co-creation projects in India & Australia, building on existing platforms in China, Russia, Thailand, Philippines & Indonesia.

6. Death by Powerpoint becomes death of Powerpoint, slowly, slowly. One day soon. We won’t be crying.

Face will be emphasizing visual clarity & simplicity in terms of outputs and making more and more of our debriefs / output material available online as an ongoing treasure trove for clients

7. The year that the industry embraces communities in their ongoing insight, innovation & planning cycles, enabling them to work in the real world as their brands become as social as the people consuming them are!

Face has developed an adaptive brand planning process that helps Insight, Planners & Marketing people to keep their brand planning dynamic, organic and always on!

8. The year of the rebirth of insight. Researchers realise that processes like Co-Creation, Communities & Crowd-sourcing are not just there to play with, but are serious methods of getting better result, especially in the day in day out job of getting clients closer to their customers.

Face is doubling the size of its insight teams and putting actionable insight at the heart of everything we do

So, 2010, some big challenges & quite a journey ahead but a truly exciting time for us and the industry as a whole. Look forward to going on that journey with you.

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The Open 100

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

The guys over at http://www.openbusiness.cc are running a competition that allows you to nominate your top open companies/organizations/platforms in the world. The Open 100 celebrates the power of openness and mass collaboration. The competition was born out of the UK’s National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) search for the world’s top 100 open innovation organizations. Now it is being opened up to you to find who the world’s best open innovators really are. You can nominate those companies you think are the best deserving to appear on the list of the best and most interesting open businesses at http://www.openbusiness.cc/category/directory/.

You might wonder what we actually mean what we mean by open organizations? While there is no clear-cut definition of ‘openness’ there is undeniably a trend to democratize and de-centralize previously closed business processes as the lines between consumers and producers blur. Increasingly companies are opening up their innovation and production processes. Some are formed from the start around communities as with Face, while others are opening up their intellectual property to share with others. This promises better, faster and more efficient innovation.

Lego, hoping to be part of The Open 100

Roland Harwood of NESTA responded to the idea that open innovation is bandied around as a phrase too much, suggesting that the techniques will eventually just drop the word ‘open’ as it becomes more the norm. “It’s over-hyped and has been used and misused but the trends that underpin it are only going to increase. Open innovation is being prioritized at a senior level in organizations. Leaders like its promise of creating value quicker, cheaper, faster,” said Harwood to Businessweek. “But it’s the middle managers and heads of departments who have the responsibility for implementing this. They’re struggling for the right processes and business models and they don’t know where to start. That’s where the gap is. The strategic argument has been won; now it’s a pragmatic challenge.” The practice is always so much more difficult than the theory.

A month into the competition and there are a varied mixture of organizations and platforms nominated. Major telecommunications companies like BT, Nokia and Orange are nominated for their open innovation approach. Collaboratively made films like Faintheart,and El Cosmonauta as well as a Creative Commons based film production company are also nominated. Household name web startups like Firefox, Twitter, Flickr, Google, Ebay and Facebook have been put forward as well as the smaller but equally important web services that focus on the environment like Akvo and Pachube.

International megabrands such as Lego, Virgin Atlantic, Tesco, IBM and Dell are also in the running with open innovation and openhardware communitites like Harkopen and Openp2pdesign.org. There are also 3 nominations for the band Nine Inch Nails for their pioneering transparent and co-created approach (nomination 1, 2, 3).

Nine Inch Nails released their album, The Slip, online last year as a free download

In 2009 Nine Inch Nails released their album, The Slip, as a free download

Nominated companies for ‘The Open 100’ can fall into the following categories:

Open Innovation│ Crowdsourcing │ Co-creation │ Open Source Software │Open Hardware│ Open Business (includes web 2.0)

And they will need to do some of the following…

∟ innovate products or services through communities

∟ share information for free using alternative ‘open copyright models’

∟ give substantial parts of a product or service away for free

∟ operate organizationally like open source software production, but translate the model to services

∟ lowering the costs of market entry by providing tools or services, that ‘open’ up traditional business boundaries

Public nomination will close on the 12th of February and the panel of judges will then choose the winner from each category. The panel of judges includes: Vic Keegan (technology correspondent Guardian), Marc Surman (director Mozilla Foundation), Roland Harwood (director Open Innovation at NESTA), David Simoes-Brown (head of Corporate Open Innovation at NESTA) and Andrew Gaule (found of the H-I Network and leader of the Network for Innovation and Strategic Growth). The winners will be announced on the 24^th of February at the ‘Open 4 Business’ conference at NESTA and at http://www.openbusiness.cc/. The winners will have the privilege of being published through NESTA and The Guardian Open Platform in the ultimate collection of open organizations; ‘The Open100’. Help celebrate the benefits of openness by nominating your favourite organizations or platforms at:

http://www.openbusiness.cc/category/directory/

Follow The Open 100 on Twitter at:

http://twitter.com/TheOpen100

Check out Face’s entry to The Open 100:

http://www.openbusiness.cc/2010/01/21/face/

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‘We’re Still Not Taking Consumers Seriously Enough’

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

It is always nice to see someone from the advertising world stepping out and talking about involving consumers in their processes. It is even nicer when they work in the same building as us! Owen Lee, Founder & Creative Chairman of Farm (our office mates), had a letter published in the latest edition of Campaign Magazine titled ‘We’re Still Not Taking Consumers Seriously Enough’.

Owen stresses the point that agencies & brands need to listen to, and collaborate with their audience as today’s empowered consumers ‘have the power to make or break brands in an instance’. He goes on to say that in today’s 24/7 online world there is a need to make big changes and ‘move away from campaign bursts’ exchanging them for ‘a continuous engagement model’.

You can read Owen’s letter in full below… Click on the image to enlarge!

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A Hybrid Model for Open Innovation

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Slides up from last Friday’s Open Hardware conference at Nesta Hq. It was a really interesting day, engaging conversations and some (telling) arguments! All in all, It was very useful for me to reflect on the differences between the co-creation and crowdsourcing models on one side and the opensource model/community on the other side.

A Hybrid Model for Open Innovation

View more documents from Facegroup.

Most of the friction seemed to emerge around two cornerstones of co-creation: 1) rewarding the people involved in the process 2) involving consumers as active equals, at the same level of designers, coders and creatives.

The idea of rewarding the people involved in the co-creation project with incentives (cash or prizes) was seen by some as a deal-breaker: it “kills the magic of the collaboration” and outsmarts the “love” element in the motivation. But I think since most brands are nowhere near the idea of giving away their IP and go opensource, it is fair and crucial to reward the people involved for their time and effort.

It also makes sense to remember that a big part of the opensource workforce is made of paid developers (just think about Mozilla) and I would argue that certainly they mustn’t love their job less because they get paid to work on something they consider a cause. So, I think cash doesn’t exclude love/glory/fun. As a matter of fact it probably multiplies the three of them. Or at least it would in my case (if it wasn’t clear enough already).

The second friction-generator was the idea of involving in the process consumers/users at the same level as designers/coders/creatives. Some of the coders involved thought that (non-skilled) consumers/users should just be involved as testers, once the strategic and creative work has been done by “the experts”.

This is a kind of resistance we encounter quite often over any co-creation process. It may vary in degree but the idea of having non-skilled consumers coming up with ideas and “tasking” skilled developers/designers/creatives doesn’t go down well. So, it wasn’t big news, but what surprised me was that this resistance was coming from people that live and breath in the open source world.

So I decided to dig it up. And after discussing and arguing the various points, pint after pint, one of the explanations I was given is that the open source collaboration process is based on a principle of equal contribution while the co-creation one is potentially asymmetric. So if you’re not contributing enough to the open source community, or as much as the others, you’re not going to be taken seriously and you shouldn’t have the right to be tasking other users. But again, if I look at how opensource communities work I’m not sure symmetry and equal contribution are religiously observed. Also, the presence of paid developers in the open source community kind of compromise the “equal contribution” argument.

All in all, I think it’s important to have different types of co-creators, with different sets of skills, contributing to different stages of the process in different ways. Throwing them all together without a structure, a solid process and diversified roles it’s just not going to fly. And that’s why leadership is so important for any opensource community.

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Around the World in 5 Co-Creation Lunches

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Well we have all been busy bees over the last couple of months, jetting off abroad quite a lot & taking our co-creation ethos to numerous different countries.

Now I could write something super intelligent and pithy about how the methodology and style of co-creation needs to flex via country (and in fact I’m sure I will indeed do that in the near future) but for now I wanted to write about something that was even closer to my heart…..

Lunch.

Aside from the need to flex approach, style and expectations from co-creation by market, the thing that most struck me was the need to flex what you eat, when you eat it and for how long.

Yes, honestly.

So I thought I’d share what we have found out about lunch from doing co-creations across the world over the last couple of months. Here is what we have learned from the UK, Germany, Holland, Argentina and Russia.

A 3 course lunch is of course preferable, but honestly, the humble brits are happy as Larry with a sandwich, a can of coke and something sweet and yummy. 30 minutes will do us fine, but if the pressure is on (which it sometimes is), and the energy & enthusiasm is up (which it always is) then we’re more than happy and willing to keep on working while we eat. Work horses to the last we’re only happy when we’re on the fly.

For Germans it’s not the size of the boat, it’s the motion of the ocean. Well not really, but to use a slightly cryptic metaphor what I mean is, what you have for lunch is less important than how long you have for lunch. Which is not that important actually, what is important is sticking to whatever you have said in terms of time – not a minute more or less will be tolerated without significant question and discussion.

In Holland it is less about what you eat for lunch (soup, rolls (lots of cheese) and salad in case you are wondering), more how you eat and how often! Lunch is just the start – a “formal” sit down affair, and it’s very important that everyone starts eating at the same time – grabbing an sandwich and wandering about is definitely off the menu. But ideally there should be a “second lunch” around 3.30pm which consists of some snacks of the same overall amount as lunch – 1 bowl of nuts and some Kettle Chips it is not.

Argentine's don't mess when it comes to meat.

Lunch in Argentina is THE BIG ONE, the main meal, after all it has to sustain you until about 9pm when it’s time for dinner. It is sacrosanct and a deliciously slow and relaxed affair. Don’t even bother asking if anyone is a vegetarian, they won’t be (looks of horror abound if you dare to suggest you might be a veggie), and wine is totally acceptable. Set aside at least 2 hours for a sit down, preferably 3 course lunch, though if you could make it 3 and all go home in between that would be heavenly.

Russia is all about BIG hearty fayre, a proper 3 course lunch for at least an hour with compulsory smoking between courses. For all.

So there you go – a quick whistlestop tour through the interesting eating habits and customs we have seen and learnt in the last couple of months.

Hungry anyone?

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Do Brands Really Need Agencies?

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

Do Brands Need Agencies? | Face Forum, Nov 09

View more documents from Facegroup.

Following on from the success of our Web 2.0 Women forum earlier this year we thought it was about time we opened up another hot topic for debate. The last Face Forum revolved around the key question ‘Do Brands Need Agencies?’ On the 18th of November we have been joined by friends, experts and clients at the Groucho club to discuss what it takes to stay relevant and true to your consumers, how to engage the crowds in research innovation and planning and what are some of the tech trends for 2010 and beyond. Here’s a quick summary:

Relevance
The real-time social web has changed the way we communicate giving us the tools to get and share information at a pace we have not experienced before. This has made the web the richest insight field we have ever had. How can you harness the power of the world wide wave for research, brand planning and brand engagement? What are real-time research and adaptive brand planning? And how can they help your brand stay relevant?

Crowds
Barely a day goes by without a website, campaign or competition cropping up, promising to harness the collective wisdom of crowds for the benefit of brands. Peperami even ditched Lowe to ask the crowds. But is bottom-up really enough? When did crowdsourcing cease to be a means to an end and become an end in itself? Join us to discuss a hybrid model where crowd-sourcing and co-creation are used as complementary methodologies.

Trends
We asked 3000 19 to 25 years old young adults about their consumption habits, media and tech diet. The Forum will be the place where we present our latest Techtribe report, uncovering youth trends that will soon start migrating to other audiences

It was a great night! Here’s the presentation that kick-started the discussion, join in and tell us what you think

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VENUE UPDATE!! November Espresso Briefing: how to use real-time WOM analysis for adaptive brand planning

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

wom uk espresso briefing @face

Brands are increasingly realising the importance of integrating word of mouth into everything they do. They get that it’s essential for nurturing consumer relationships. They understand that referrals are key to ROI. They’ve heard exciting examples of companies who’ve built their success on conversational strategies. But how on earth do they fit WOM into their existing marketing mix?

On 8.30am, Tuesday 24th November, we will present on‘Monitoring and analysing WOM in real time to enable adaptive brand planning’.

CEO and Founding Partner Andrew Needham, and Head of Social Media and Planning Francesco D’Orazio, will look at how to:

- Measure and monitor online conversations about brands to assess brand influence and brand visibility
- Apply qualitative analysis to determine research parameters and add meaning to quantitative findings
- Identify conversation hubs and influencers across a wide range of channels
- Use crowdsourcing and co-creation methodologies to achieve research, innovation and planning objectives
- Build iterative models for feeding real-time insights and consumer inputs into the existing marketing process

As always, the briefing will be totally FREE and kick off with half an hour for coffee, breakfast and networking at 8.30am with the talk starting at 9am and questions and discussions afterwards until 10.30am, all at INSIGHT RESEARCH GROUP offices, 11-13 Charterhouse Buildings, London
EC1M 7AP. Last month’s presentation from Matt Morrison was a big hit so be sure to register for this one now via julian.ferguson@womuk.org – members get priority booking.

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Our Blog

Archive for the ‘Co-Creation’ Category

Co-Create London – Top 10 Ideas So Far!

The Creatives Role in Co-Creation

Face: A Co-Created History – Part 3

Axe Twist – An Entirely Co-Created Product

Join Us @ The Launch of The Co-Creation Hub, 18th March

The Co-Created World of Warcraft

Do Cultural Differences Impact International Co-Creation?? Part 1: Introducing The Project

Headbox’s Top 10 for 2010

2# Inception
Christopher Nolan is the man who can do wrong. Making his big break in 2000 with backwards murder mystery Memento, Nolan has gone on to direct a string of blockbusters making him one of the most sought after men in Hollywood…[READ MORE]

The Open 100

‘We’re Still Not Taking Consumers Seriously Enough’

A Hybrid Model for Open Innovation

Around the World in 5 Co-Creation Lunches

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Our Blog

Archive for the ‘Co-Creation’ Category

2# Inception Christopher Nolan is the man who can do wrong. Making his big break in 2000 with backwards murder mystery Memento, Nolan has gone on to direct a string of blockbusters making him one of the most sought after men in Hollywood…[READ MORE]

Meet Us At

Categories

Archives

Subscribe Via Email

Research Goodies

Terms of business

Opportunities

Case Studies

Axe: Project Kit

Orange: Project Explore

Skip: Project Gold

Project: Save Tango

Doritos: Project Steer

Ribena: Project XIII

2# Inception
Christopher Nolan is the man who can do wrong. Making his big break in 2000 with backwards murder mystery Memento, Nolan has gone on to direct a string of blockbusters making him one of the most sought after men in Hollywood…[READ MORE]