According to Pine and Gilmore (1998) an experience is as real an offering as any service, good or commodity. An experience occurs when a company intentionally uses services as a stage, and goods as props, to engage individual customers in a way that creates a memorable event.
The following – Magnum Pleasure Store and Restaurant “Dans le noir?” – are nice examples of companies that provide unforgettable and unique experiences.
Magnum is a well known, premium ice cream brand, which in order to increase the customer involvement, started to enable the customers to create their own magnum ice cream. “Welcome to the world of Magnum Pleasure!” that is how they call the pop-up Continue reading Great Experiences: Magnum Pleasure Store and “Dans le noir?”→
Open-innovation is about using the crowd to create value in the new product development process. Two examples of this are Eli Lilly’s platforms and Lego’s Design byME service. [1]
Mass Customization is the process of delivering wide-market goods and services that are modified to satisfy a specific customer need. Below are mentioned the main advantages and disadvantages of the mass customization.
Advantages
Mass Customization Utility
– Product utility is highest because the consumer benefits from a unique product. The product is tailored to the consumer’s needs.
– Process complexity is such that a consumer who knows what he/she wants can design their specific product.
Manodrabuziai.lt (translation MyClothes) is an online platform where people can create a profile and buy, sell or simply change their clothes, accessories, shoes and other things.
The founder of the program introduces herself as former shopoholic, who decided to get rid of her things online. Most of the things were in a really good quality, thus she decided to simply throw them away, but to open her closet to other girls.
Mysuitny.com is an online website that allows anyone to design their own suit. Within two weeks one can have a uniquely tailored made suit delivered to their home.
An individual can pick from 100 types of materials, that don’t simply differ based on colors. The assortment of the materials to pick from differs between pattern, weight of the material and colors.
When looking at the jacket, pants and vest a large variety of options are available. These options differ from type of stitching, to the buttons used and design of the pockets. Continue reading Design your own suit on mysuitny.com!!!→
Coco-mat is a greek company and is recognized as a leader for natural sleep products bed linen, towels and furniture for homes and hotels. It was established in 1989 and today is one of the most extroverted companies in Greece. It has a growing network of 12 stores(Belgium, China, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, United States) around the world, including The Netherlands. Coco-mat has built a strong brand equity over the past years, based on the natural materials that coco-mat products are made from. Continue reading COCO-MAT→
Harley-Davidson is the most famous and successful manufacturer of motorcycles in the USA, dating from 1903, and specializing in heavyweight motorcycles and choppers. Their models are distinguished for their special style, originally meant for highway driving, but evolved into five different motorcycle categories, in order to match with any taste.
In the mid-80’s Harley-Davidson was facing serious problems because of the Japanese ‘invasion’ in the US market with great motorcycles that managed to outsell Harleys and make them seem rather out-of-date and old fashioned. It was that time when Harley-Davidson realized that they would have to deliberately adopt the looks and feel of their earlier machines in order to explore this ‘retro’ and customizable look they had (1). The Continue reading Harley – Davidson Custom Motorcycles→
In the case of customization and consumer involvement, making your own personal photo book online is a good example which is nowadays very popular. Create your own photo book, online or with software which can be downloaded, is a well-known business application offered by a vast number of suppliers (e.g. Albelli, Fotoalbum.nl, Blokker, Kruidvat, HEMA) in the Netherlands. However, it is very popular and many consumers wants to save their beautiful memories (e.g. holidays, family reunions, weddings, birthdays) in personal photo books, on canvasprints, calendars and many other products. Continue reading Create your own photo book, customization by Albelli→
In 1997 ‘The Crazy Ones’, a commercial made by Apple, aired with the slogan: Think different. Steve Jobs, co-founder of the company and former CEO, voiced the commercial, which contained a story that reflected the philosophy he thought Apple had to reinforce. In an interview for PBS, the American non-commercial educational television channel, Steve Jobs elaborated on the way he saw the future of consumers. He said: “Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is – everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use”. Continue reading The Crazy Ones→
During the second class of the Consumer Channel Dynamics course, the professor gave us a few examples of companies that have begun using mass customization to add more value to their products. One of the examples he mentioned was M&M`s. It used to be that if you wanted to eat M&M`s you were restricted to eating the M&M`s with the M on it. Nowadays people can go to the My M&M’S website and personally customize the M&M`s themselves by placing pictures or words on them. When this first came to my knowledge I immediately thought to myself, why haven`t I heard of this before? That’s because I think this is a fantastic idea. It’s very hard to come up with something new these days, but reinventing an already existing product is just as hard. Some might say it’s even harder due to the risk of damaging the existing brand name. Continue reading My M&M’S→
Buying a business outfit is normally a costly occasion. A good business outfit normally cost a couple of hundred euros. Even for this price, you are still limited to the different outfits the store offers. When you choose to buy a tailor made suit, the price will even be higher. Meet Itailor.com!
Itailor is a classic example of mass customization. Itailor.com makes it possible for people to design their own business outfit existing of a suit, shirt, tie and business shoes. When you enter the website, you get a choice menu. This menu makes it possible to design a clothing item that you need. Continue reading Tailor your own business outfit→
Think of Lyft as on-demand ridesharing application that lets you order a car ride from one point to another and an affordable alternative to a cab. “It’s your friend with a car on demand,” says John Zimmer, co-founder of the San Francisco startup. In fact Lyft is a mobile app that uses real-time location data on your phone to let you find a background-checked driver in your area in minutes Continue reading Lyft.me, Your friend with a car→
In 1989, Magnum ice cream was born in Germany, since then Magnum has been characterized for being unique and special. Starting with the fact that a chocolate coating capable of resisting – 40 degrees Celsius, had to be created by the Belgian chocolate brand Callebaut especially for Magnum. Continue reading “Make my Magnum” experience→
We have talked a lot in class about customization and there are many ways that firms can choose to implement it, I will discuss the example of design it yourself by HEMA. HEMA is a Dutch department stores which offers good quality products for a fairly low price (compared to the other department stores in the Netherlands).
HEMA has their own design it yourself ‘store’ on their website where you design anything ranging from clocks, aprons, photo albums, calendars, bicycles, wine labels and bags to cakes and baby clothes.
All of us have been in the situation of searching for accommodation when travelling either abroad or inside our country of residence.
Take for example Walt and Emma, a young couple from London that wanted to spend a long weekend in Paris. Unfortunately, they did not know anybody there that they could stay with, so Emma and Walt were left with just one choice: booking a hotel room or staying at a hostel, depending on their budget. That was the case until recently.
You want to have your very own Longchamp Le Pliage bag but you see so many of those already. If you want to differentiate there is only one way to do it!!! Make your own Longchamp Le Pliage bag in the official Longchamp’s website.
Do you think that the world needs you twice? Professional photographer Jens made 400 duplicates of himself and called it the #GIJENS
Well for you it is possible as well! During my search I found a very special form of customization. You can duplicate yourself and make yourself even more epic. I am talking about the website http://www.myfaceonafigure.com/ and about another website which is called: shapify.me I do review two ideas because the second is a very interesting new technology which can be used in the field of customization. Continue reading Replicate yourself→
The so-called customization, that is, according to the different needs of customers’ custom exclusive products, giving consumers more personalized intelligent device, purchase experience and after-sales service. On April 2nd, 2013, HTC media seminar was held in Beijing, China. Mr. Ren Weiguang, the CEO of Chinese market and HTC vice president, product marketing general manager Mr. Lin Zurong attended the activity, introduced to the media about the domestic e-commerce and service customization strategy, which was also a core marketing plan in the rest of 2013.
Riding a bike in the Netherlands is part of everyday life, most people cycle to work or cycle to shops on a regular basis. However, for some people, cycling is not merely a method of transport; it’s a passion. For these biking enthusiasts a 50 euro second hand bike will not make the grade. These cyclists are willing to pay thousands of euros for their specialist bikes. To help match these highly demanding customers to a bike with all the features they need, Trek, an American bike company designed ‘Project One’, a bike customisation program.
One more successful idea from Coca-Cola surprised the consumers last summer! “Share a Coke” with your friends, family and loved ones! The message was spread and Coca Cola increased its sales and website traffic rapidly.
The campaign started in 2011 in Australia with the classic Coca-Cola and it was mostly focus on the young ages between 18-25. The results were astonishing, youth consumption was rapidly increased and the traffic in Coca-Cola website increased by 870%. Two years later in UK the campaign launched again but this time all the three types of Coca-Cola were available.
The most common names were printed on bottles and cans which were available in supermarkets. The next step was to transform the campaign more direct and personal. In selected spots consumers were able to create their own products with a name of their choice. Long human cues in several cities and people holding the “special” bottle or can contributed effectively to the launch of the new Coca-Cola campaign.
In September, after the end of the tour, Coca-Cola still offers the opportunity to consumers to “Share a Coke”. The campaign in social media continues and individuals still have the opportunity to create their own online bottles and share it. For example “Tweet your photos @cokezone with #shareacoke” or through the facebook page.
Coca-Cola is a company which follows a specific strategy, to connect consumers’ personal experiences with its products. Advertisements related to family moments or Christmas time constitutes usually the concept. Summer 2013 was definitely a period marked by the logo “Share a Coke”! The main goal was to persuade consumers to share the experience of drinking a Coca-Cola with favorites such as family, friends and partner. The chance of creativity and the appearance of names in the package attracted individuals to participate in the campaign. The company succeed to offer a product affordable and personal and simultaneously to make everybody fells unique and special.
Once again Coca-Cola adapts to the market environment and proves that the well-structured marketing strategy which follows can be successful. Combining the traditional with the modern and challenge the customer to participate actively, not only increased sales but also generated a special relation between the company and customers.
Consumer Value Creation 