CROWDSOURCING IN PRODUCT DESIGN FROM A MARKETING PERSPECTIVE
ABSTRACT
Crowdsourcing is the practice of outsourcing tasks including a form of compensation to a wide external group of people. It is a newly used term which refers to the process of obtaining services, ideas, or content by seeking contributions from a large group of people particularly from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Multiple types of businesses nowadays are using crowdsourcing for a diverse range of tasks that they find can be better completed by members of a crowd rather than by their own employees. This paper examines this new terminology “crowdsourcing” and its relation to marketing in general. It presents as a primary
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Increasing numbers of companies are realising the potential of tapping into crowdsourcing because it fulfils the marketing concept. Even companies which would not normally be associated with opening up their strategy processes such as Procter & Gamble, are beginning to see the value of relinquishing some control over its strategy in order to tap into open innovation in product design.
In the following sections we will explore the ways in which crowdsourcing can be implemented towards fulfilling the marketing concept in product design. We will also explore its advantages through examples of successful implementation strategies, and its limitations as crowdsourcing may not be suitable for all types of products or types of businesses.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Product Design using crowdsourcing
The conventional method of product design revolves around identifying new opportunities, gaps in the current market place and possible enhancements to existing products using market research. This is then fed back into professional product design teams, which then come up with possible solutions.
Recently, companies have also tapped into ‘user innovation’ by involving users and customers in the design process. This has been made possible by a cumulative change in the
The purpose of this report was to design a start-up strategy and IS infrastructure for Ruth & Luke (R&L) Crowdsource’s business. Research for this report identifies the focus (target market), opportunities and threats in entering the market and provides a detailed business model.
1. Product Conceptual Design (2 - 3 hours): Apply the Product Design Process to develop a new product design concept for the following products:
Indeed, the organization recognizes that many people are impressed by the design of its products. As such, the marketing of the products is focused on informing the consumers of how the products can make life better. For instance, the success of iPod was majorly a result of the
Crowdsourcing, defined by Wired Magazine from The Guardian, is “The act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined network of people to gather for
The authors research focuses on crowdsourcing in relation with creative agencies as intermediaries.The authors provide a strong theoretical evidence based upon case studies, focus groups and in-depth interviews. The provided discussion builds on limitations to crowdsourcing expectations and provides an organized review of methods to control future success. Moreover, the lengthily results of the research allowed in dept overview and findings of various activities within the crowd sourcing methods, although limiting the conciseness of information .This article provides a strong foundation to examine crowdsourcing and further develop a widely used business model, In particular, this article will assist financial professionals to be able to evaluate crowdsourcing projects and their outcomes.
When anyone is able to interject their opinion on a matter, made possible through the internet, the amount of data that must be weeded through becomes massive – tens of opinions easily turn into thousands. For example, each year Doritos relies on consumers to create their Super Bowl commercial. Consumers submit their homemade videos for a chance to win $1,000,000 and have their video played at the Super Bowl. With an opportunity like this, there are a lot of people who want to weigh-in. While this is a great way to add creativity and bring attention to your product while allowing potential winners to showcase their work, it is not an easy task to tackle. In 2012, 6,200 videos were submitted by consumers (Erickson, 2012). Doritos had to hire outside agencies to spend countless amounts of hours reviewing each and every video, just to find a handful that had potential. The pitfalls the internet brings to crowdsourcing, like the Doritos case, is that when anyone is allowed to easily contribute, enormous amounts of unusable data must be sorted through to find the needle in the haystack which is both time consuming and financially
Crowdsourcing has been around for years, yet we are now learning more about it through social media and various advertisement platforms. Since 2002, crowdsourcing has been helping small businesses flourish lucratively and still remain affordable. Crowdsourcing is used and has been used to connect labor demand and supply. From focus groups to online contests, crowdsourcing, crowd funding, crowd voting, crowd collaboration and so forth, continues to grow larger and even more popular. Crowdsourcing outsourced the group of focus groups. Modcloth.com was the start of crowdsourcing. "A company that exemplifies the crowdsourcing model of customer- driven merchandise buying is Modcloth."- We are put in the designer/ buyers shoes, almost literally. "Pick It" or "Skip It", as they say. It helps the consumer to be able to engage in their own creativity. What about the opinion of an expert though being overlooked by a collective group? This clever plan has spread like wildfire, but can we trust the wisdom of crowds? I plan to show the pro's and con's of crowdsourcing. The risk for small businesses, the pitfalls and uprising's of this online phenomenon.
It will consider the influence and power designer possess, the negative outcomes of bad communication, and how designers can do good. This research is significant because the world today needs to be accountable for the issues it has caused, one designer at a time, one person at a time.
The art of gathering information for a prospective product has long been a tedious task of advertisers, manufactures, and entertainment producers since the inception of advertising. It was realized that if a company could figure out what consumers wanted or needed they could tailor their products or services to them and save money from making things no one wanted. However, to do this, companies or advertisers would have to gather large groups of people together and present the products or services and gather feedback from those people. While this was the model for decades, and still is the primary method of gathering information, there is a new and possibly better way to present new
With this technological advancement, the individual has been emancipated from total reliance on the publishers, record labels and retailers. Any individual with access to the internet, can share their work and has the opportunity to create a stir within an industry. In Open Design Now: Why
Despite marketing forces, design can overcome the barriers/external forces in order to maintain its integrity and to practice responsibly/ethically.
Crowdsourcing is a new tool that has gradually modified and replaced some ineffective original ways. Based on the research and development on crowdsourcing, more and more new applications appear. This paper singled out two distinctive crowdsourcing applications from numbers of emerging applications, idea generation and Microtasking. Two examples, Amazon Mechanical Turk and Idea Storm are selected in order to understand the role of these two applications in real life. Moreover, comparison of these two cases are conducted, this allows readers have more comprehensive understanding of crowdsourcing and different roles in different applications.
building a product for the Users as we are not making a product for ourselves. If we build a
Or possibly it was the following sentence (“…As designers we influence the way people interact with our products…”) as this one sentence made me realise I am the quiet little voice that tells the user to hold the product like this or tilt it that way or put the powder here. The intrinsic little conscience of a product is my thoughts and aspirations for the product. These followed through from my thoughts through my pencil into the final prototype and finally embedded in every one of product units manufactured. The product may not be a direct extension of me but perhaps more closely a child of personal progressions and growing pains as a designer. My thoughts on this topic lead me down a very long and winding path where I eventually end up realising. Designers have a lot of power in how a product is used and interacted with by users. Everyone now knows after watching that one movie “with great power comes great responsibility”.
The design is a whole business process which includes all sides of the manufacture of the products from the design of the components to be used in the products, their usefulness, their shape and performance to serve the objectives such products are launched in the market in accordance with the needs and expectations of customers. The implementation of the new process is targeted at the management of the supply and purchase channels more efficiently in face of competitors.