Thrudigital

In a world where Brands must adapt or die, a new collective comes together introducing their first co-creation project.

Press Release

London (February 24, 2010) - Today sees the launch of The Co-Creation Hub, www.co-creationhub.com. A collective of organisations, academics and individuals who passionately believe in doing things ‘with’ people rather than ‘at’ people. Their first project is Co-Create London, an independent initiative giving the general public’s most pressing issues, and their solutions, a platform to be heard.

The founding members of The Co-Creation Hub – London are Face, the co-creation planning agency, which has successfully co-created projects for international companies such as Coca-Cola, Nokia, Unilever, and Reckitt Benckiser; Farm, the advertising agency, which has co-created communications for Nestle’s Skinny Cow; Opticomm, the media planning agency; Touch of Mojo, the brand design agency; and thrudigital, the social media development agency. And, they are actively looking for organisations and individuals from different fields that share their way of thinking, to get involved and help develop the co-creation movement.

The Co-Creation Hub – London is the first of a planned number of Hubs across the world, as the principle of co-creativity grows and develops in territories such as Latin America, Asia and the USA.

Andrew Needham, founding partner of Face, as well as group managing partner of Tangible Group London, a core division of Cello Group Plc, is one of the key instigators of The Co-Creation Hub – London. Andrew explains: “In the next decade brands must adapt or die. The Co-Creation Hub – London recognises that social media isn’t simply another channel; it has fundamentally changed the way consumers interact with brands. We need a more collaborative, adaptive and continuous model of marketing – one that is based on the core co-creation principle of doing things with people not at them. We call it Adaptive Brand Planning. It is a model that will ultimately be better placed in helping our clients deal with the advent of social brands”.

The Co-Creation Hub – London is the first place to bring the principles of co-creation to all stages of the marketing process, and is founded on three key tenets:

1. Constant consumer involvement throughout the entire marketing planning and brand communications process – maintaining a continuous dialogue with consumers; harnessing their ideas and opinions to develop better products and communications and adapting to their changing needs and tastes in real-time.
2. A continuous process, with no end points as the communication is constantly building and evolving. A fluid way of working with a tightly knit team of agency specialists, seamlessly pulsing in and out of the process, as and when required.
3. Creating communities and fan-bases, and constantly communicating with them, online and offline.

Needham continues, “By putting the consumer at the heart of the communications process we have removed the old linear process of passing the baton from one agency to another. We work in a continuous loop of insight, co-creation, validation, engagement and real-time measurement. And, with Co-Create London as our first independent social project, we are creating a platform allowing people to be heard by those who can make a difference, using the co-creation principles.”

Co-Create London, the first co-creation project by The Co-Creation Hub – London, is a social initiative giving Londoners the chance to change their city.

The project is designed to crowdsource the problems and ideas of the general public by asking the simple question ‘What Would You Do To Make London a Better Place?’.

The most insightful and tangible ideas from the crowdsourcing phase will be taken forward into a co-creation workshop. The workshop will see Londoners who contributed to the www.cocreatelondon.com website come together with open innovation experts and key London stakeholders to refine the best concepts and convert them into robust solutions.

The top three ideas collected from the co-creation workshop will be put up for voting online and the idea with the most votes will then be presented to London Mayor Boris Johnson.

As an example of how this creative philosophy is applied to design and branding, The Co-Creation Hub logo was developed using the process of co-creation. An identity brief was written and ideas were crowd-sourced from members of the public. The crowd-sourced designs were taken into a co-creation workshop attended by members of the founding agencies together with members of the public, following which, two logos were selected and refined, using the learning from the workshop, by Gary Robinson, Farm’s Creative Director and Ray Armes, Creative CEO of Touch of Mojo.

The final logo is a combination of a crowd-sourced identity, an output from the co-creation workshop, and the skills of an experienced design team.

Owen Lee, Founder and Creative Chairman of Farm and Hub member, comments: “Consumer research has long been considered a wet blanket on creativity, but the answer certainly isn’t to remove them from the process, it’s quite the opposite. The brand building process is now continuous and the consumer is a constant and integral part of it. We no longer launch our view of a brand at a passive audience; it is about building fan bases, allowing them to play with brands, re-shape them and even imbue them with new meaning.”

Ray Armes, Creative CEO of A Touch of Mojo and a Hub member, points out, “Consumers have always been a rich source of insight and creative inspiration; bringing them into the heart of the creative process yields big brand ideas that both agencies and clients can believe in. For once, consumers can become part of a brand’s vision and even help determine the most effective channels of communication.”

Charles Dalton-Moore, Managing Director of thrudigital and Hub member, says, “Today there is a constant consumer dialogue going on around products and services. The challenge for brands is how to join and add value to this conversation using a range of co-creative tools.”

Paul Cox, Managing Director of Opticomm Media and Hub member, adds: “It is increasingly apparent that consumers are hard to define by prescribed statements on a generic survey, and as media owners can make or break brands. By combining traditional tools with sharper adaptive media planning bespoke to our audience, as well as looking at the efficiency of our media usage in real time, we can make immediate changes within a campaign.”

Whether manufacturers, artists, writers, designers or government organisations, The Co-Creation Hub – London is looking to collaborate with people from around the world involved in co-creation, whatever their discipline, to stimulate the co-creation approach.

As part of the launch, an inaugural members’ open evening will be held on Thursday 18^th of March at The Design Council 34 Bow Street, London WC2E 7DL at 6.30pm.

To reserve a place at the evening on a first come first served basis, please register your interest here: ldn.co-creationhub.com.