This article was originally published in Dutch in 2011 and has been translated and updated in October 2026.
It fits the spirit of the times perfectly: the tools are available and producers are increasingly willing. The era of dictating to customers is over. Creating value together, that is the present and the future. Imagine being part of the development of a (new) product from a brand you care about and have been loyal to for years. The time has come for your loyalty to be rewarded, for your needs to be met and for an end to products that nobody actually wants. It is time for co-creation and co-design.
This article introduces you to this innovative way of producing, walks you through the ‘pains & pleasures’ and shows a number of real-world examples to inspire you to get started yourself.
What are we actually talking about?
Because co-creation and co-design are often mentioned in the same breath, here is the distinction between the two. This article gives examples of both co-design and co-creation.
Co-creation is a situation in which an organisation creates value by entering into a collaboration with a group of consumers, end users or other stakeholders.
and
Co-design is a process in which consumers or end users are involved in developing new, customer-focused products or services. The input of consumers or end users in this process is aimed at creating value within an organisation.
Pains & Pleasures
Co-creation comes with a number of ‘pains & pleasures’. Some of them are listed below.
Pains & Pleasures
| Pains | Pleasures |
|---|---|
| Change takes time, and therefore money | Collaboration leads to better creations |
| Collaborating is harder than competing | Dialogue adds depth |
| Customer-centric business is new, which brings a lot of resistance | Positive effect on effectiveness |
| Legally, it is difficult to determine who owns the (new) creation | Positive effect on brand image |
| Positive effect on loyalty | |
| Greater visibility | |
| Better insight into customer needs | |
| Better insight into market needs |
Depending on the situation and the objectives, there are even more ‘pleasures’ to be named.
Examples from practice
Below are a number of practical examples of companies and brands that applied this way of creating. In some of these examples, social media were also used to put the method into practice. Bear in mind that these examples date from around 2011; several of the campaigns and platforms mentioned have since ended or changed form.
Lay’s - Make the flavour
In 2011, this crisp-making giant caused a real revolution in co-design by combining a range of social media with other media such as television, print and radio. Below is a video featuring one of the commercials, which was used both online (YouTube) and on television.
NIKEiD
Nike is a textbook example of an organisation growing step by step into a fully co-creative company. At the time it had several applications that made this clear, such as Nike+ and NIKEiD. Nike+ united (competitive) runners around the world through a fully ‘customised’ online platform. The platform supported runners with a variety of user-oriented applications: kilometres covered per week, a training schedule and so on.
NIKEiD was all about designing your own favourite Nike trainer yourself (co-design). Nike built an application for this that could be used on its website, and also made it available within Facebook. Today the service lives on as Nike By You, where you still choose a shoe and finish the design with your own personal touch.
KLM BlueLab
A source of Dutch national pride, Royal Dutch Airlines KLM was also making good progress on the co-creative path. In October 2007 it launched BlueLab, an online platform set up specifically to enable dialogue with customers: an ‘online suggestion box’.
Lego Factory
After years of dictating the market with its endlessly versatile plastic bricks, a lot changed for Lego from 2005 onwards. Not so much the bricks themselves, but the themes. Themes such as ‘Adventures’, ‘Technic’, ‘Rock Raiders’ and ‘Systems’ used to be carefully conceived and developed by the creative team inside Lego. From 2005, it was no longer only Lego’s own creatives who were responsible for developing new themes, but also the users and fans of Lego. Lego Factory made it possible to come up with and build your own designs. Lego mainly used YouTube to support its marketing here.
An example of a co-design project at the time was Lego Hero Factory; see the trailer below:
Lego was also very present on Facebook; see its Facebook Page here.
Today, Lego’s best-known form of co-creation is LEGO Ideas: fans upload their own creations to the LEGO Ideas site, other fans vote on them, and the best ones are turned into official sets.
ReDesign Connect
This was a project by ReDesignMe.com.
In short, it was an interactive platform that made the following possible:
- A company posts a creative assignment, called a ‘Challenge’.
- The community, which at the time consisted of more than 8,000 people, takes on the ‘Challenge’.
- The company rewards the best entries with a financial reward.