Identifying, Interacting and Involving Consumer Innovators

Consumer use products innovatively and marketers are observing consumer usage of their products to identify the innovative uses and if found interesting to extend the product's unplanned use over a larger market. Consumer innovation as a concept extends it to consumer adding some attributes to the manufacturer's product to give him additional benefits. Many consumers are doing it and then some of his friends may like and copy it.

Eric von Hippel, Susumu Ogawa and Jeroen P.J. de Jong authored a paper in Sloan Management Review with the title "The Age of the Consumer-Innovator" and gave the results of their surveys on consumer innovators.(http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2011-fall/53105/the-age-of-the-consumer-innovator/  )

Companies have to now consider consumer innovation as significant and put in place procedures to identify the innovators, interact with them and if found interesting to involve them developing the innovation further commercially.