TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to understand the differences between proactive and reactive market research techniques during the development of new market offerings. The study focused on the financial and innovative performance of traditional market research techniques, such as focus groups and in‐depth interviews, in comparison to more co‐creation‐oriented techniques that are designed to capture customers' value‐in‐use.Design/methodology/approach– The study was a two‐stage process. Study I, an empirical investigation of 195 development projects in European companies, examined how these companies use different market research techniques and how this relates to the profit margins of new products and services. Study II designed an experiment with 50 users of a consumer good and evaluated the contribution of different market research techniques, based on the degree of originality and customer value.Findings– Significant differences were found, in terms of both content and originality, between the technique based on customer co‐creation and the two traditional market research techniques (Study II). These findings can help to explain why the relationship between the use of market research techniques and profit margin (Study I) is stronger for co‐creation techniques than it is for traditional market research techniques.Originality/value– Despite empirical evidence that the application of market research techniques based on co‐creation can lead to original ideas, there is a lack of valid studies regarding how co‐creation techniques perform in relation to more traditional methods of collaboration with customers.
VL  - 22
IS  - 2
SN  - 1757-5818
DO  - 10.1108/09564231111124190
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/09564231111124190
AU  - Witell Lars
AU  - Kristensson Per
AU  - Gustafsson Anders
AU  - Löfgren Martin
PY  - 2011
Y1  - 2011/01/01
TI  - Idea generation: customer co‐creation versus traditional market research techniques
T2  - Journal of Service Management
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 140
EP  - 159
Y2  - 2024/04/19
ER  -