Crowdsourcing getting traction for NPD

In line with my recent post about the trend of consumer driven advertising, consumer insight lead new product development initiatives get more and more traction. Indeed, marketers now view crowdsourcing as a more effective way of creating new products and services than consulting or internal R&D, according to a survey by the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG).

The percentage of respondents who saw crowdsourcing as effective or highly effective for new product and service development shot up from 62% a year ago to 75%, overtaking R&D which fell slightly from 73% to 72%.

The percentage who rated traditional consulting and professional services firms as effective or highly effective fell from 54% to 49%.

In the same period, familiarity with the term ‘crowdsourcing’ – which describes organisations using web 2.0 tools to tap the knowledge of stakeholders and experts through open invitations for help and ideas – rose from 30% to 72%.

Richard Guha, chairman of MENG, said: “Tapping the wisdom of crowds over the internet can be enlightening for an organisation in many ways, providing marketers with valuable insight to expand their brand mind share and market share. However, like any good customer insight, interactive ideation or predictive analysis effort, it’s important to frame the issue, manage the process and carefully assess the value of the collective data.”

The survey was conducted last month in association with online social network Crowd Forum.