Effectiveness and efficiency of consumer co-creation processes

Co-creation is a popular form of involving consumers in the generation of product ideas. Despite the co-creation’s popularity, relatively little is known about conditions that increase its effectiveness and efficiency. The paper analyses experiences of food co-creation processes, carried our with 42 consumer teams in the context of living labs in 14 European countries, as part of EIT Food RIS Consumer Engagement Labs project. The findings suggest that useful results of co-creation are not merely new product proposals, but also additional consumer insights and psychological benefits achieved by the participants. The effectiveness is also dependent on the participation’s breadth (diversity of consumers involved) and depth (intensity of the involvement). Trade-offs were identified between achievable effects and cost/efforts of the process, which included: specific settings of the sessions, participant-related conditions as well as logistical and financial arrangements, jointly accounting for the co-creation efficiency.