Marketing has finally become a conversation. Not, in most cases, as was intended, BETWEEN corporations and consumers (that would make too much sense), but rather a global conversation involving millions of consumers ABOUT corporations. On sites like Planetfeedback.com ,thecomplaintstation.com ,Epinions ,About.com , on hundreds of thousands of blogs, community sites, forums, viral emails, bulletin boards, and what have you, consumers relentlessly exchange views, complaints, opinions and comments about products and services, about brands, about companies, about YOUR company.

Why now? Because they finally can. For decades, consumers have been saving up their insights and rants about the stuff they consume, simply because there were no adequate means to interact with companies, or with other consumers for that matter. No longer. These fickle, wired, empowered, informed, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC (Master in Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have a direct influence on what companies develop and produce for them.

It certainly helps that these same consumers are also part of GENERATION C : they're creative and increasingly have access to professional hardware, software, and online distribution channels to show (and dictate) companies what it is they expect from them, using text, sound, picture and video in ever more powerful ways.



Sure, some companies ARE now engaging creative customers in new ways. Recently, brands like Coors Light and Mercedes Benz invited customers to co-create advertising campaigns, with Mercedes encouraging proud owners of a Benz to submit snapshots of themselves next to their automotive objects of desire. And Mazda and Conde Nast have just partnered to create a similar contest whereby contestants can submit photos representative of their interpretation of Mazda's "Zoom-Zoom" slogan. (Thanks, Adrants.com!)

These companies are clearly aware that tapping into the collective intellectual capital of their customers yields great creative and 'real' content. However, let's not make the mistake to think that in the end these conversations will all be about communications and branding: how about extending this cooperation with consumers to virtually everything a corporation does, by making the customer an integral part of ALL creative and creational processes?

TRENDWATCHING.COM has dubbed the latter "CUSTOMER-MADE" : the phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed. The CUSTOMER-MADE trend has been slowly building over the last five years, but with the current onslaught of consumer activism and the rapid rise of GENERATION C, it finally seems ready for its big moment in the limelight, where TRENDWATCHING.COM expects it to stay for many years to come. It doesn't hurt that Management Guru C.K. Prahalad recently published 'The Future of Competition' an insightful and highly recommended book on co-creation, which prompted us to move CUSTOMER-MADE to the top of our emerging trends list!


Mind you, CUSTOMER-MADE is NOT plain feedback, it's not Do-It-Yourself, it's not customization, it's not even personalization, as all of these happen after companies have decided what the basics are, which products and services and experiences they're willing to hand over to consumers, who can then (at best) modify certain elements, change a color, replace a cover. That's still pretty much a one-way conversation, business as usual.

So what DOES qualify as CUSTOMER-MADE ? Check out the hands-on examples below; a random yet varied overview of CUSTOMER-MADE initiatives, both 'corporate' initiatives and grassroots movements, which should get you going.




Last year, 120,000 people around the world signed up to join Boeing's World Design Team , an internet-based global forum that encourages participation and feedback while the company is developing its new airplane. Activities include message boards, conversations with the Boeing design team, and extensive discussions on what members like and don't like about air travel today, as well as features they'd like to see in their dream airplane. In Boeing's own words: "Flyers and aviation enthusiasts from around the world are sharing the excitement of creating the airplane of the future."



Shoe designer John Fluevog has a section on his site entitled Open Source Footwear , wherein serious Fluevog owners can submit designs for future shoes. The winning design actually gets put into production. CUSTOMER-MADE at its best!



A lot of talking and commenting goes on at www.niketalk.com , the non-affiliated online sneaker community which so far has received more than 200 million visits and 3.5 million posts. Every Sunday at 9 PM EST, their sister site, chat room NikeChat , welcomes Nike fans from around the world, to exchange views, tips and more.



A similar set up for new Mini Cooper owners can be found at www.mini2.com , for Lego fanatics at news.lugnet.com/dear-lego (BTW, Lego itself allows programmers from outside the company to access to the code that controls its Mindstorm toy robot, leading to an increased range of activities the robot can perform, in ways the company never imagined), and for TiVo users at www.tivocommunity.com . About the latter: for the past four years, the 65,000 members of the self-organized TiVo Community forum have traded ideas on 'how to convince friends and family to buy a TiVo', 'how to deliver impromptu sales training sessions to Best Buy employees whose sales pitches need work', or 'how to be a better TiVotee'. CUSTOMER-MADE sales teams anyone?




At www.ipodlounge.com , avid iPod users (and aren't they all?) congregate not only to talk about their favorite device, but also to show the world (and thus Apple) what they would like the next iPod to do and to look like, or adaptations they've already created in their basement or garage. A fascinating combination of GENERATION C and future CUSTOMER-MADE trends if we ever saw one. The site gets more than 5 million hits a day, and if we were Apple designers, or Steve Jobs for that matter, we'd visit iPod Lounge weekly to get a good dose of CUSTOMER-MADE inspiration, and probably recruit loads future employees while we were at it.



RENDWATCHING.COM is all in favor of conversations taking place in the vicinity of beverages. Which is why we think Philips Streamium Cafe is aptly named. It's where owners of Philips' new WiFi TV sets and hifi systems tell Philips where they think Streamium is going, and what Streamium should be able to do. Current discussions involve everything from the time format on the appliances' display to 'Support for Real Player RadioPass + Real Rhapsody.' How long before the discussion turns to the question of which OTHER Philips appliances should become WiFi enabled?




Online Lovemark Google has always been open to suggestions and comments from its millions of users: Google's social networking site Orkut includes two communities with over 1,000 subscribers: "What Should Google Do?" and "What Should Orkut Do?" And on Google's own business blog , visitors are encouraged to send their suggestions to gblog@google.com. And, gasp, they actually reply. A CUSTOMER-MADE treasure trove: who does NOT have some strong (and cool) views on what Google should do next?



To prevent even more of you complaining about TREND-WATCHING.COM's newsletters getting too long (see, we're listening! ;-), we will only touch upon the now familiar CUSTOMER-MADE initiatives in the world of software. Let's not forget that Microsoft ' invites ' millions to download beta versions of its software to test and improve, and don't even get us started on the Open Source revolution (under Open Source, thousands of volunteer programmers communicate over the Net to create, and continually improve, computer software products). At SourceForge.net alone, 883,000 registered users are cooperating on 80,000 Open Source software projects. We haven't seen anything yet!





CUSTOMER-MADE games anyone? From Wikipedia: "Mod or modification is a term generally applied to computer games, especially first-person shooters such as Quake, DOOM and Half-Life, but also to real-time strategy games such as Warcraft III, Total Annihilation and the Command & Conquer series. Mods are made by the general public, and are entire new games upon themselves. They can include new items, weapons, characters, enemies, models, modes, textures, levels, and story lines. They also usually take place in unique locations."




One great CUSTOMER-MADE example is Counter-Strike , which started out as a Mod for Half-Life about four years ago. Counter-Strike is downloaded and then runs on top of legal versions of Half-Life. It now sells more copies than the original game itself: upwards of 1 million games per day are hosted on dedicated servers.




And what about the open marriage between CUSTOMER-MADE and user-generated content? Check out four-year-old South Korean OhMyNews . This online newspaper works with 26,000 'citizen reporters', who send in stories and pictures which make up 80% of all content. OhMyNews pays up to USD 20 per article, though for many citizen reporters, getting their name in the paper is the real reward. Fiercely outspoken, OhMyNews has successfully challenged the traditionally conservative press in South Korea. CUSTOMER-MADE AND CUSTOMER-READ indeed!

In Holland, popular 24/7 news site NU.nl encourages readers to send in breaking-news pictures (since virtually everybody owns a digital camera or camera phone these days). The best images are also sold to ANP, the country's main news agency, who then pays these citizen photographers up to EUR 60 per shot.



Yes, another Apple example, this one partly 'owned' by Apple. At Apple's iTunes store , user-created playlists enable customers to upload their favorite music selections and share them with other customers, who can then buy the songs if they like what they hear.

Needless to say, it was Amazon.com who pioneered this kind of CUSTOMER-MADE service, with their sophisticated recommendation system and customer book reviews, resulting in some of the most popular features of the Amazon.com site being entirely CUSTOMER-MADE .



The travel community meets at the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree , an online bulletin board with over 5,000 posts a day (Lonely Planet also receives around 1,000 emails and letters a week from customers, helping them to constantly fine-tune their content), and at Virtual Tourist , where 400,000 members from over 219 countries share insights and experiences to help each other travel smarter, from finding the best place to get great airfares, accommodations or car rentals, to solid insider advice on what to see and do. In their own words: "VirtualTourist members are a friendly and helpful bunch and it's a snap to use the collective experience and brain power of our members to get the help you need."


OPPORTUNITIES
Is the CUSTOMER-MADE trend spanking new? No. But with the gap between traditional business practices and truly empowered consumers now reaching significant proportions, the CUSTOMER-MADE trend will further accelerate, moving from fringe trend to mega trend. In fact, CUSTOMER-MADE may turn out to be one of the most exciting and long term engines behind change and innovation that the world of business has seen in years: a way of thinking that has the power to redefine the relationship between customer and brand, between consumer and producer, something that taps into the most awesome reservoir of intellectual capital ever assembled. If that's not enough to invoke spontaneous brainstorming sessions, TRENDWATCHING.COM doesn't know what is.


So, to get started, what's stopping you from setting up your own ipodlounge.com, hiltonlobby.com, virgincabin.com, ingcounter.com, saabbackseat.com, safewaysaisles.com or vodafoneconnection.com, and inviting your customers to engage in CUSTOMER-MADE goods, services and experiences? Are you ready to open up (even as an experiment) one strategy meeting, one design process, one brainstorming session to the millions of consumers who may have an expert opinion, suggestion, new business idea and so on, simply because they're your avid users, and, in the best case, true fans?

Oh, and if fear of a deluge of complaints and requests is holding you back: rest assured the deluge is already happening, and that if YOU aren't listening to your smart, able customers, someone else definitely is!




"Get ready for CUSTOMER-MADE: the phenomenon of corporations creating goods, services and experiences in close cooperation with consumers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and in exchange giving them a direct say in what actually gets produced, manufactured, developed, designed, serviced, or processed. Consumerism will never be the same!"



CU STOMER-MADE is getting bigger and bigger. Sure, we were bullish on this trend when we introduced it last November (be sure to re-read our initial coverage ), but still, the sheer number of new CUSTOMER-MADE spottings and insights surprised even us. To refresh your memory:

"For decades, consumers have been saving up their insights and rants about the stuff they consume, simply because there were no adequate means to interact with companies, or with other consumers for that matter. No longer. These fickle, wired, empowered, informed, opinionated and experienced holders of a MC (Master of Consumerism) are getting used to 'having it their way', in ANY way imaginable, which includes wanting to have direct influence on what companies develop and produce for them.

It certainly helps that these same consumers are also part of GENERATION C : they're creative and increasingly have access to professional hardware, software, and online distribution channels to show (and dictate) companies what it is they expect from them, using text, sound, picture and video in ever more powerful ways."




What better way to become part of this trend than to learn from companies who already have embarked on a quest to become co-creators instead of obsolete DIY-ers? Please study the following new CUSTOMER-MADE examples (spanning the B2C spectrum from potato-chips to cars, and the globe from Brazil to Sweden), followed by a number of new CUSTOMER-MADE learnings. For your convenience, we're introducing five broad CUSTOMER-MADE categories: Consumer Marketers, Expert Outsiders, Amateur Outsiders, Remix Culture and User Generated Content 2.0.



There is no stopping the trend of creative consumers contributing to, or even owning your advertising campaigns, both authorized and behind your back. Why? To feature on a website or billboard, or have one's home-made commercial downloaded by hundreds of thousands of fellow consumers is just too much fun. We previously highlighted CUSTOMER-MADE campaigns orchestrated by Mercedes, Mazda and Coors Light, now add:



While Nike was basking in the glory of Tiger Woods' winning shot at the Masters Golf (GA) tournament, which involved a swoosh-brandishing golf ball getting priceless air time, Joseph Jaffe immediately created and uploaded what no doubt will or should become the next Nike commercial: www.jaffejuice.com/2005/04/tiger_did_it_ak.html .



- The Converse Gallery should really have been part of our initial CUSTOMER-MADE piece, as it was launched last August, and has since then set the standard for CUSTOMER-MADE commercials. The site features dozens of 24-second films, CUSTOMER-MADE by Converse fans, who are asked to express what Converse shoes mean to them. The chosen films are then broadcast on Converse's website, with the possibility of being aired on MTV and other cable networks. With hundreds of submissions and millions of visitors ever since, this is one tasty source of CUSTOMER-MADE inspiration.

Marketing and advertising sure is fun, but true CUSTOMER-MADE involves co-created goods, co-created services, co-created experiences! So, waking up to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of experts, innovators, inventors and so on outside company walls, research labs and innovation units at large corporations are increasingly NOT going it alone. Check out the following initiatives aimed at tapping expert outsiders (often designers and artists) for potentially lucrative new ideas:



Last summer, Core 77, the industrial design site, teamed up with watch maker Timex for a global design competition called Timex2154: THE FUTURE OF TIME (celebrating Timex's 150th anniversary). Designers from more than 72 countries explored and visualized personal and portable timekeeping 150 years into the future, resulting in over 640 entries. Winners can still be viewed online, and in the Timex Museum.



- In the same vein, Illy Cafe teamed up with Domus magazine in April 2004, asking students and designers under the age of 35 to create new ways of enjoying coffee ("create a place for meeting, discovery and encounter"). Over the course of 10 months, 704 entries were received, roughly half coming from outside Italy. The best 14 projects were exhibited in Milan this month (April 2005). The winning concept is an escalator which functions both as a coffee machine and an art show. Coffee is served at the bottom of an escalator. On the way up, customers sip their coffee and enjoy a brief art exhibition. At the top of the escalator, they throw their plastic cup into a recycling machine that instantly molds it into a ticket for an art exhibition or show. Also noteworthy is the Illyvator , by Bryan Boyer. If this doesn't make you want to set up your own CUSTOMER-MADE contest, what will!? (Source: Springspotter Network , Michell Zappa.)



- The third Peugeot Concours Design was launched in September 2004 at the Paris Motor Show, and the final results were shown at the Geneva Motor Show last month. After aspiring car designers were asked to design the Peugeot of their dreams for the near future, 3,800 projects (compared with 2,800 in 2002 and 2,050 in 2000) were sent in, from 107(!) countries. This year's winner was the Moovie , a two-seater vehicle for urban use by Andre Costa, a Portuguese industrial design student. The full-scale model of his design will be unveiled at Peugeot's stand at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2005. (Source: Springspotter Network , …zgŸr Alaz.)



- In South Korea, mobile carrier KTF has held a contest to design new cell phones based on a "Cell Phone of Sensibility" theme, with a focus on usability and style. Just last week, 19 winners were announced, and a few of them may see their creations end up in Korean stores soon. (Sources: Engadget, Slashphone.)

- A more ongoing approach involving outside experts can be found at Procter & Gamble , which launched its dedicated Connect + Develop program about five years ago, with the goal of having at least 50% of its new products derived from ideas generated by non-employee experts. Beside its own R&D employee base of 7,000, the company now has access to millions of potential innovators. The results so far? Everything from Swiffer Wet Jet, Olay Daily Facials, Crest Whitestrips & Night Effects to Mr. Clean Autodry, Kandoo baby wipes and Lipfinity. (Source: Tech Central Station, Industry Week.)



If 'experts' still conjure up images of bespectacled geniuses donning white lab coats or black turtlenecks, it's time to get with the Pro-Am revolution: in a world dominated by the Creative Class, we're all amateur experts! So here's an overview of companies tapping EVERY user's mind, not just experts, for divine inspiration and award winning goods, services and experiences, bringing amateur outsiders fame if not money:



- IKEA 's " fiffigafolket " contest (Swedish for 'ingenious people') which just came to an end, and is now in jury-phase, asked amateur outsiders to send in clever designs for storing home media (hifi sets, TV, DVD etc) in the living room. Out of 5,000 ideas submitted, fourteen winners will be invited to IKEA headquarters for a workshop, and will receive EUR 2,500. More interestingly, the designs will actually get produced and end up in IKEA stores for all to see, buy and assemble. (Source: Springspotter Network , Okee Williams.)



- Copenhagen's 3 star Park Hotel became the Hotel Fox this April 2, as Volkswagen 'adopted' the venue to promote its new Fox model. After inviting 20 street artists, graphic designers and illustrators to redo the 61 rooms, consumer-artists too were asked to submit designs for the one room that is still in its original non-splendour. No word on the winner yet, but he or she gets to spend two weeks in Copenhagen to implement his or her ideas with the help of an interior designer. (Source: Springspotter Network , Jason Park.)


- CUSTOMER-MADE pioneer Jones Soda has been letting its customers create 'custom soda labels' by submitting their own photos for a long time now (their label gallery now contains an astounding 285,285 pics); some of these are chosen as permanent, wide-distribution labels for Jones soda. In true CUSTOMER-MADE style, the Seattle based beverage company also actively asks for feedback on possible new flavors. (Source: Springspotter Network , Charlene Rooke.)

And the list goes on, from apparel to salads:



At Threadless , an ongoing t-shirt design competition urges users to submit shirt designs, which are put into the running to be scored for seven days. After those seven days, the highest scoring designs are chosen to be printed and sold in the shop section. A similar concept is pursued by Dutch Buutvrij , while CUSTOMER-MADE fabrics can be found at naked and angry.



There's cold hard cash to be made at OriginalSnowboartArt.com , where customers design snowboard graphics and receive a percentage of the proceeds when they're sold. (Source: Springspotter Network , Jason Sturgill).



Edible CUSTOMER-MADE examples include Olvarit and Sumo Salad , the latter inviting customers to mix it up and suggest new salads on its site : every month one new CUSTOMER-MADE salad is selected, ending up on Sumo's official in-store menus (source: Springspotter Network , …zgŸr Alaz.) Catering to a younger audience is Netherlands-based Olvarit , who urged mothers to send in their favourite healthy baby food recipes. This resulted in a spanking new product line, Mama's Choice, which features eight winning meals, from Josine's 'French vegetables with ham' to Barbara's 'Fish stew with banana'. Needless to say, a picture of mother and child appeared on the labels of the food they CUSTOMER-MADE .



- On a grander scale, and starting two years ago as a pilot, the BMW Customer Innovation Lab was BMW's first true CUSTOMER-MADE environment. Participants were handed an online tool-kit, helping them develop ideas and showing how the firm could take advantage of advances in telematics, online services and driver assistance systems. From the 1,000 customers who used the tool-kit, BMW chose 20 and invited them to meet its engineers in Munich. BMW worked with German CUSTOMER-MADE intermediary Hyve to set up the service, just like Audi did when it ran its Audi Virtual Labs in 2001 and 2004. The Audi lab was focused on the development of 'infotainment' systems, gathering information about consumer expectations, preferences and upcoming trends in the infotainment world. A total of 1,662 consumers participated, designing their own individual infotainment consoles, expressing 219 service ideas, giving 261 comments on a prototype console, and contributing 728 visions of future cars. Not bad ;-)



Closely related to CUSTOMER-MADE , with a healthy dose of open-source mentality added, is the burgeoning Remix Culture, spearheaded by hackers, but now embraced by savvy consumers who are either tired of having to deal with goods and services that don't do what they want them to do, or who want to combine the best features of various offerings. Think Paul Rademacher's clever pairing of Google Maps with Craigslist Classifieds, mapping by price range all properties for sale or rent in specific areas. Which actually delighted Google (no, not all companies freak out when users improve what's on offer) who not too coincidentally just launched code.google.com , a new tool for the other Pauls of this world, giving access to free source code and lists of Google's API services.

- Remix Culture is also about clever programmers modifying Sony 's Portable PlayStation days after it hit the shelves Only days in the US this March; remix fanatics have added chat and TV to the device's functionalities, cleverly capitalizing on the PSP's WiFi connection and other built-in, semi-locked online capabilities.



- Is Remix Culture a techie-only affair? Nope. It works just fine for sneakers, too: all over the web, sneaker freaks are uploading pics of their 'remixed' shoes; check out French Shoes-Up , a gallery where Adidas customers display their own version of Adidas' Superstar line, celebrating its 35th anniversary (see picture above). And who by now hasn't heard of the Adidas Zissou sneakers featured in the movie 'The Life Aquatic'. White/yellow sneakers with light blue striping (see below), these fictional shoes had thousands of sneaker freaks lusting after them, until remixers not only designed and produced their own - the DIY guide is still online - but also put them up for sale on eBay earlier this year. (Source: Springspotter Network , Bertrand Carton.)

- Tate Britain in London is running a Write Your Own Label scheme. Visitors of the museum's website are asked to contribute their thoughts on how paintings should be described, and the chosen submissions are then displayed next to the paintings in the actual galleries. There's a nice touch of GRAVANITY in here too! (Source: Springspotter Network , James Davis.)




- A decidedly grass-roots approach to publishing, JPG Magazine features photographs taken by contributing (amateur) photographers who primarily work online, but want to share their work in print. Each issue is centered around a theme, and anyone can submit a photo via JPG's website.

- Taking a cue from CUSTOMER-MADE knowledge pioneer Wikipedia , Microsoft's Encarta is now testing a system that allows readers to suggest edits or additions to entries in its encyclopedia. Editors will still check contributions for factual errors or evidence of bias. Meanwhile, the number of topics/articles on Wikipedia runs in the hundreds of thousands.

- And to prove that user generated content is fast trumping any kind of traditional guide, listing, or other limited overview, look no further than IgoUgo . The online travel community's 350,000 members offer what traditional guidebooks can't: hundreds of thousands of opinions on more than 4,000 destinations across the globe, plus suggestions and photos for everything from cheap eats and luxury accommodations, to must-see attractions and worthwhile day trips. (Source: Springspotter Network , Elizabeth Miles.)

It's actually not hard to see how any business dependent on global, 24/7 content feeds will have to embrace CUSTOMER-MADE to stay attractive. Which then brings us to... major news organizations, forced to take a cue from the OhMyNews.com format, not to mention the blogosphere:

- The BBC is actively encouraging customers to submit pictures and videos, which may then be used immediately on any BBC News outlet, or end up in the In Pictures of the BBC website. Cleverly, not only does the BBC tell citizen reporters where to email their content to, they also provide a cell phone number, so camera phone pics can be MMS-ed instantly.



- The Guardian has launched an appeal to readers to get snapping with their mobile phone cameras to generate coverage for the UK's forthcoming elections. The Blair Watch Project urges readers to email or MMS their pictures to The Guardian's Flickr account . They'll be available for public viewing, with the best pics republished in The Guardian's blog. (Source: The Mobile Technology Weblog.)

- A less temporary approach can be found at NowPublic.com . From their website: "Seeing is believing, and you need to see more. Corporate news is missing this story. Again. You searched and there's no decent footage. You need NowPublic. Assign the story. Get photos, video, audio files posted to your request by citizen journalists on location. See the truth for yourself and show the world. NowPublic makes it easy to track down the real story and get the proof you need. Turn your blog posts into photo assignments. Watch fellow members vote to prioritize your story and chase down the footage. Give them a budget or recruit volunteers. Either way, the news is NowPublic."

- Promising to be equally entertaining (and disruptive) is Google Video Upload . Their tagline "Your work deserves to be seen" promises more GENERATION C meets CUSTOMER-MADE fun (not to mention another NOUVEAU NICHE accelerator). From the beta site (for now, users can only upload content; editors will be scanning and indexing the content before putting it live): "Whether you produce hundreds of titles a year or just a few, you can give your videos the recognition and visibility they deserve by promoting them on Google - for free: we're now accepting video from anyone who wants to upload content to us. As the content owner, you decide whether you'd like to give away your video for free or charge a price that you set for it. If you do charge a price, Google will take a small revenue share to cover some of our costs". Mmm... GENERATION C actually making money from their creations: TRENDWATCHING.COM approves.




Which then brings us to CUSTOMER-MADE TV networks:

- On Al Gore's new Youth TV network, Current , programming will to a large extent be comprised of viewer submissions , which can be uploaded to the network's website. From Gore's launch statement': "The Internet opened a floodgate for young people whose passions are finally being heard, but TV hasn't followed suit. We intend to change that with Current, giving those who crave the empowerment of the Web the same opportunity for expression on television."

- The people of Engerwitzdorf, Austria are filming, editing and producing their own regional news channel. The channel, Buntes Fernsehen , covers local politics, sports, events and anything that residents want to film and are prepared to upload for others to watch on PCs.

- Canadian BITE TV is taking the citizen's media/blogging approach to television. BITE will offer viewers the opportunity to submit their own video content including make-your-own television ads.



- Not to be outdone, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's ZeD is a late-night, arts-and-culture program that mixes amateur movies with independent film and studio-produced content. ZeD allows viewers to shoot, edit and upload their own short-form videos to the show's website. ZeD receives between 200 and 300 viewer-produced videos per day, and employs a team of online editors to sift through the content, check it for copyright issues and either publish it on its website or pass it along to a producer who will give it a coat of professional polish, if needed.

Expect the media business to seriously feel the impact of the CUSTOMER-MADE trend in the very near future: thanks to an abundance of new channels (mobile, IP based TV, online niche publishing), an insatiable need for more content will fuel Consumer Generated Content 2.0. Consumers' appreciation of more opinionated, authentic, non-corporate owned material doesn't hurt either. And as everything avant-garde eventually becomes mainstream, this is what you want to keep a close eye on, and learn from the developments, before CUSTOMER-MADE hits your own industry full force.

Examples are useful to get inspired, AND convince other execs this is really happening; insights and learnings are for you and your team who then have to develop a kick ass strategy AND implement it. So here we go:




- Consumers are into CUSTOMER-MADE because they can:
-get and control exactly what they want and need at their own terms
-show off their creative skills or even become famous
-make money from their contributions and involvement

- If CUSTOMER-MADE reminds you of some of your B2B strategies, you're right. In fact, the way you're already closely collaborating with your suppliers may well be applicable to your CUSTOMER-MADE strategies. More to follow on this in our next update.

- CUSTOMER-MADE is a great alternative to traditional marketing: if you co-create products, participants obviously don't need to be 'told' about the product, plus they are far more likely to act as brand ambassadors.


- In a review driven and transparent world, the alternative to CUSTOMER-MADE is finding out about your customers' feedback, suggestions, and anger through publicly accessible name-them-and-shame-them sites.


- And in an almost ironic twist, CUSTOMER-MADE is turning out to be a great vehicle for recruiting the next in-house designer, guerrilla advertising agency or brilliant strategist. It's the trend that keeps on giving ;-)




OPPORTUNITIES

Yes, CUSTOMER-MADE is a Big Trend. So where on earth to begin? The many examples and insights above (together with our November overview ), and rereading our GENERATION C trend should provide you with a pretty solid starting point for your own brainstorming sessions, innovation summits, strategic away-days and what have you.

Next for the CUSTOMER-MADE revolution? How about CUSTOMER- OWNED? As the number of CUSTOMER-MADE initiatives grows exponentially, savvy members of GENERATION C will demand serious compensation if not a fair percentage of whatever it is they've co-created with you. Soon, a simple iPod in exchange for designing the firm's Next Big Thing just won't do. Also expect a slew of intermediaries coordinating millions of knowledge exchanges between producers and consumers, from talent brokers to project managers.

And if you're not sure whether all of this really applies to your business, then consider this: one trait that all of our trends have in common is that they seriously alter consumer expectations. Once accustomed to CUSTOMER-MADE being an option, consumers (well, MASTERS OF THE YOUNIVERSE really) will take even less kindly to corporations who don't communicate, who don't respond to feedback, who don't use open source, who don't act upon suggestions, who keep throwing new stuff over the wall, hoping someone will like it. It's time to open up!

Publisher: Trendwatching
One of the world's fastest growing trend agencies, independent and opinionated TRENDWATCHING.COM scans the globe for the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas. So whether youre a marketer, management consultant, head of a start-up, student, researcher, journalist, business development director, fellow trend watcher, or just interested in staying on top of the latest trends, TRENDWATCHING.COM will instantly bring you up-to-date by getting the worlds most promising trends right in front of you
Web: www.trendwatching.com
Published: september 2005
Market: mens womens
Region: usa
Industry: apparel accessories

DISCLAIMER
Information in this report relies on sources including Trade Shows, Associations, News Releases, Government Reports and other public sources. Infomat can accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of such information or for loss or damage caused by any use thereof.