Customer motives and benefits for participating in online co-creation activities/ created by Efthymios Constantinides, Leonine A. Brünink and Carlota Lorenzo–Romero

The widespread adoption of Web 2.0 applications, commonly known as social media, has brought about a new generation of empowered customers who are often willing to co–create by sharing their experiences, product knowledge and innovative ideas with producers. They provide inputs in the form of ideas, suggestions or testing in new product development trajectories. Co–creation with customers obliges businesses to step away from the traditional firm–centric view of innovation and presents marketers with interesting challenges: how to identify, motivate and recruit the most innovative customers in co–creation processes. A pilot questionnaire based on the uses and gratification approach identifies the motivators for customers to participate in online co–creation. The results indicate that customer participation in co–creation projects is motivated by four distinct types of benefits and also that co–creating customers differ in their motivational level. The paper also discusses ideas for follow–up studies and presents suggestions for further research.