Virtual Co-Creation with Customers in the Early Stages of New Product Development

Virtual ‘co-creation’ can be a more effective way to integrate customers into the NPD process. In our study, we examine the effectiveness of virtual co-creation in the early stages of new product development (i.e. idea generation). Specifically, we focus on multiple contingent factors that can potentially impact the outcomes of co-creating activities in terms of the quality of submitted ideas by customers. Based on two integrated empirical studies, we analyze whether certain design elements of virtual co-creation activities, specific customer characteristics, brand relationship characteristics and selected interactions between those variables impact the quality of submitted ideas. We find that design aspects of virtual co-creation such as incentives, seed ideas, topic scope and task-related information have no or only little impact on the quality of submitted ideas. Customers who have a high level of latent dissatisfaction with existing products, a high level of creativity, and a strong commitment to the brand produce higher quality new product ideas. The interaction between latent dissatisfaction and intention to recommend is significant which reinforces the notion that dissatisfied customers with high levels of brand loyalty come up with high quality new product ideas.