What are the current and future opportunities for marketers to use social media technologies to improve innovation in the new product development (NPD) process? This presentation was given by graduate students in the Center for Brand and Product Management at the Wisconsin School of Business in Madison, WI, on 4 December 2008.

1. Social Media and Innovation
in New Product Development
Miles Gerson; Kirsten Jaeckle; Adam Needles;
John Rotheray and Hu (Jeffrey) Xie
Center for Brand and Product Management
Wisconsin School of Business, Madison, WI
Copyrighted by the Authors – 4 December 2008

2. Changing NPD Innovation
Shifting power in NPD
• From brand push
• To customer pull

3. Presentation Agenda
• Social Media Opportunity
• Integrating NPD Frameworks
• Mediums and Applications
– Blogs
– Facebook
– LinkedIn
– Online retail feedback
– Twitter

4. Social Media Opportunity

5. Social Media Explosion

6. Social Media in Marketing
Honest Dialogue – Hayes/Malone
• “Smart brands are turning their crowds into „clouds‟:
organic, self-forming and often self-governing
communities of interest. Companies such as Hewlett-
Packard, Frito-Lay and Harley-Davidson use their
clouds as feedback loops to get better faster by
obtaining good, timely, often brutally honest customer
insights.”
• “Right now, few companies are emotionally equipped
to wring the best benefits of a cloud, because the
most valuable voices out there usually belong to the
malcontents.”
Source: Hayes, Tom and Michael S. Malone. quot;Marketing in the World of the Web.quot; The Wall Street Journal. 29 November 2008.

7. Social Media in Marketing
Learning to Listen – Maltoni
• “Social media is about building relationships - starting
with your customers, business partners, influencers
and their networks, communities of practice, fans and
critics, etc. It's not like the shotgun approach to
marketing, it's like the focused, appropriate
conversation with those who wish to talk with you. In
some cases they already are telling you what you
want to know, if you are listening.”
Source: Maltoni, Valeria. quot;Are You Getting Engaged?quot; Conversation Agent. 28 November 2008.

8. Integrating
NPD Frameworks

9. Relevant Frameworks
• Externalizing NPD
• Content/idea co-creation
• Platforms as „customer toolkits‟
• Virtual „clustering‟
• Vertical alliances that extend to the
customer/developer
• Continuous improvement via infinite
stage-gate process

10. Applying Frameworks
Axes of Analysis for P-O-V
• Context of customer-brand relationship
• Observation vs. surveying
Other Considerations
• B2B vs. B2C
• Narrow vs. wide targeting
• Representativeness of sample

11. Social Media P-O-V
OBSERVATION
(PASSIVE)
Personal
Blogs
LinkedIn Online
Retail
Facebook Comments
Nature of
engagement
MySpace
Corporate
Blogs
Twitter
Online Survey
SURVEYING
(ACTIVE)
LOW Context of customer-brand relationship HIGH

12. Mediums and
Applications

13. Blogs

14. Blogging Overview
What is it? How is it used?
• Chronological postings
• Personal or co-created
• Expresses an opinion or talks about
something

15. Blogging for Innovation
Current uses
• Discovery of consumer trends
• Discovery of lead users
• Enhance internal NPD communication
Future uses
• Idea contribution (co-creation systems)
• Idea screening (improve stage-gate)

16. Facebook

17. Facebook Overview
What is it? How is it used?
• A free-access on-line social website
• Fixed Vs. flexible
• Connecting, sharing, and having fun

18. Facebook for Innovation
Current uses
• Target right users
• Interact and engage with users in the
same way they do with each other
• “Facebook Connect” – in process
Future uses
• Go further on co-creation
• Find Lead User

19. LinkedIn

20. LinkedIn Overview
What is it? How is it used?
• Networking
• Connection seeking
• Job searching
• Collaboration

21. LinkedIn for Innovation
Current uses
• Targeting for content, development, and
advertising
• Market research
Future uses
• Continued partnering for development
• Internal market research consultancy
• Communications clearinghouse

22. Online Retail Feedback

23. Feedback Overview
Many retailers have leveraged the power
of social media in their e-commerce
efforts through user contribution to help
drive online sales.

24. Feedback Overview
Consumers can …
• Make and receive recommendations
about products / services
• Network
– Share ideas, connect with others that share similar interests
• Build a sense of community
– Become part of a larger community of users

25. Feedback Overview

26. Feedback for Innovation
Current uses
• Pre-purchase
• During purchase
• Post-purchase
Future uses
• Improve products (user feedback in NPD/mix)
• Better customer service (support forum)
• Reduce costs (Threadless example)

27. Feedback for Innovation
Keys to success
• Build a system that leverages and
aggregates contributions/behaviors that
make them useful for others
• “User contribution is first of all about the
users and their content” (S. Cook)
– Avoid creating own content
– Nurture and encourage the contributors

28. Twitter

29. Twitter Overview
What is it? How is it used?
• What are you doing? (140 characters)
• Followers vs. friends
• Modern-day telegraph; not „IM‟

30. Twitter for Innovation
Current uses
• Ethnographic observation of Lead Users
• Customer sentiment tracking
• Live, interactive focus groups
Future uses
• Chronometric trend-spotting
• Aggregated semantic/text analysis

31. Thank You! Questions?
Contact Us
Adam B. Needles
aneedles@wisc.edu
617-413-6087
www.propellingbrands.com

32. Sources Used
• Anonymous. quot;Facebook.quot; Wikipedia.org. 1 • Maltoni, Valeria. quot;Are You Getting Engaged?quot;
December 2008 (last update). Conversation Agent. 28 November 2008.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook – http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/11/are-you-getting-
engaged.html
• Anonymous. “The Huffington Post is the #1 blog
and 104 overall most visited site on the internet.” • Maltoni, Valeria. quot;Twitter is a Social Network.quot;
Quantcast. 4 December 2008 Conversation Agent. 25 November 2008.
– http://www.quantcast.com/top-sites-2?r=104#104 – http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/11/twitter-is-a-
social-network.html
• Boehret, Katherine. quot;Birds of a Feather Twitter
• Scott Cook, “The Contribution Revolution.” Harvard
Together.quot; The Wall Street Journal. 3 December
Business Review. October 2008.
2008.
– http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/arti
– http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122826572677574415.html cles/article.jsp?_requestid=26282&value=BR0810&ml_subs
• Brogan, Chris. quot;How to Listen for Opportunities on criber=true&ml_action=get-
article&ml_issueid=BR0810&articleID=R0810C&pageNumb
Twitter.quot; Chris Brogan. 26 August 2008. er
– http://www.chrisbrogan.com/how-to-listen-for-opportunities-
on-twitter/ • Vascellaro, Jessica. quot;Twitter Goes Mainstream.quot;
• Harte, Beth. quot;The Twitter Dialogue.quot; The Harte of The Wall Street Journal. 27 October 2008.
– http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122461906719455335.html
Marketing. 15 September 2008.
– http://www.theharteofmarketing.com/2008/09/the-twitter-
dialogue.html • Corporate web sites
• Hayes, Tom and Michael S. Malone. quot;Marketing in – www.amazon.com
the World of the Web.quot; The Wall Street Journal. 29 – www.facebook.com
November 2008. – www.linkedin.com
– http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122792310060465901.html – www.twitter.com