Co-creation process

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS

Co-Creation of Value for

Heineken Company

Customer Experience Management

Anastasia Kozlova

Marya Mannenkova
Margarita Mesropyan

Valeria Salikovskaya

Ekaterina Goncharova

MOSCOW

Introduction

In the modern dynamic business environment, the innovation practices for co-creating value provide for companies the instruments for generating sustainable development and increased business performance. Thus, successful innovation requires engaging external stakeholders in developing new ideas and solutions for new product development which satisfy customer’s needs and create value for the company. The online environment, through special platforms for open innovation and social media are used by companies in order to engage customers in co-creation by successful interaction and continuous dialogue. In this context, the Heineken company approach regarding open innovation involves policies, strategies, new product development efforts, team management interventions and on-going interactions with external stakeholders on platforms for co-creation value.

Customers’ engagement in continuous dialogue and online interaction with companies in order to bring new ideas and solutions for providing new products and services adapted to market needs represent new ways for innovative companies to gain competitive advantages. Accordingly, companies use co-creation as “a powerful innovative force”[1] and as “a way to create a deeper relationship with customers that will be harder for competitors to copy”[2], attracting them in a proactive and interactive dialogue for creating value.

Over the last years, Heineken has invested a lot in showing their passion for design to strengthen the link between the brand and design. In 2011, the „aluminum bottle‟ – being served in exclusive bars and clubs around the globe – won a design prize during the Cannes Lions. In the same year, Heineken decided to go one step further by kicking-off a global design project, connecting club goers and designers in the development of a visionary nightclub. The ultimate goal of this project was to design and develop a concept club that would enhance the whole nightlife experience.

Co-creation process

Key to the idea was that the pop-up club should not be created by Heineken’s in-house design team alone, but in co-creation with emerging design talent from the same age group as the current generation of clubbers. Therefore, “Open Design Explorations Edition 1: The Club” crowd-sourced young designers from four global design capitals (New York, Tokyo, Milan and Sao Paulo) by inviting them to submit their portfolio via Heineken’s Facebook page. Live portfolio presentation events in these four design cities resulted in the final selection and composition of the design team: 19 emerging product, graphic, fashion, interior and motion designers. Heineken’s senior design team and a crew of established designers with fame functioned as coaches for the young talents.

So far, Heineken brought the ingredients together that would lead to a beautifully designed night club. The real question was if all created concepts would be as relevant to the clubbers. The project team at Heineken understood that in order to develop a relevant and impactful take on club design, understanding the needs and wishes of clubbers today would be crucial. That is the reason why, during the selection process of the young designers, Heineken and InSites Consulting were conducting a global research project with club goers to provide the design team with relevant and true consumer understanding, acting as a briefing, a source of inspiration and a springboard for ideation

Engaging a group of young, trendy clubbers from all around the world to participate in research can be quite a challenge and although the club of the future is an inspirational topic, the selection and execution of the research methodology needs careful attention. It was opted for an online research community (MROC) of three weeks with 120 participants for various reasons:

1. A longitudinal piece of online qualitative research was the way forward as it makes it possible to conduct a global project, in which clubbers need to be “followed” over a longer period of time, in a rather cost and time efficient way.

2. The current generation of youngsters (Generation Y) are “digital natives”. The web is their second home. Talking to and working together with other people in the online space feels very natural to them. Next to that, the asynchronous connection in a community allows participants to join the online discussion on the time and location of their choice, perfectly fitting the lifestyle of today’s younger generations.

3. Today’s youngsters are used to being empowered by their parents and they start to expect that from brands as well. The online research community connected the trendy clubbers with an aspirational brand and facilitated the co-creation of a night club, a place that is part of their daily life. Heineken team worked together with people who were interested to participate and who could inspire them with interesting stories: design-savvy youngsters, living in one of the 12 trendiest cities on the planet (10 citizens of each city), going to a club at least one time a week and being a non-rejecter of the beer category in general and Heineken in specific. The participants were recruited through a snowballing process, which started on Heineken’s brand page on Facebook.

In order to keep the community participants engaged over the course of three weeks they were taken on a journey. In four different rooms on the community platform they could share their current clubbing experiences and the role of clubbing in their routine, their view on the ideal nightlife journey and give feedback on the first sketches of the designers. The tasks presented to them were a mix of questions, writing reviews, keeping a (photo) diary and holding discussion battles. To develop a holistic view on the needs of clubbers, a movie metaphor was guiding the participants through the different weeks – from selecting the actors in the ideal nightlife journey, to the scenery and the scenario for the perfect night out.

The three-week dialogue with clubbers resulted in over 2,000 comments, providing a unique view on the meaning of clubbing in their lives. In order to report the outcome towards the designers in the most impactful way - a report that they would actually read and use during the creative process – Heineken team went beyond the traditional ways of reporting. The analysis of the discussions resulted in the shaping of 28 key learnings, each linking a challenge for the design team to the needs of their audience. “Service design thinking” inspired the integration of these learnings – spread over six touch points – in a consumer journey map.The touch points where users interact with the service are often used in order to construct a journey – an engaging story based upon their experience.

This “Nightlife Journey” was reported as an interactive infographic not only accessible on desktops, but developed in HTML5 with specific attention to iPad usage. The app guides the designers through the six phases of a night out: from “pre-club drinks and meeting-up”, “entering the club”, “going for a drink”, “dancing”, “chilling” to “going home”, telling the designers about what the role was of a specific scene in the overall night, what the clubbers’ expectations were in that specific moment; and emphasizing the frictions clubbers encounter during their journey. To make the learning experience as engaging as possible for the designers, the 28 key learnings were formulated as consumer quotes. Next to this, for each learning a design action was indicated under the actual insight.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 809