Consumer-driven Innovation: Integrating Consumers’ Innovation Potential via Product Tests

Buschmann A, Lendowski E, Schewe G

Abstract
Company-consumer interactions are increasingly becoming the locus of value creation. Integrating customers into development processes is particularly beneficial regarding New Product Development. Co-developing products with customers results in innovations that better fit their actual needs and therefore reduces uncertainty and costs of development processes. Adopting consumer-driven innovation approaches does not only affect internal development processes and their outcomes in the form of newly developed products, but also consumers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions towards these products. To analyze the effects of consumer-driven innovation we adopt a multistage research approach, investigating both actively involved and non-participating consumers. The research findings confirm our hypotheses: Consumer reviews of co-developed products are perceived as being highly credible, and their readers as well as co-creating customers are more likely to buy and recommend the products to other consumers. Integrating consumers into New Product Development processes therefore positively affects new product success.