Many if not most new product or service offerings fail to achieve their hoped-for market acceptance or do so only after long and expensive trial and error. To improve these odds, some companies have begun working more directly with customers to “co-create” innovations. This raises the question: Who are the “best” consumers to engage in this way? Some look to “lead users,” others to especially “innovative” consumers.

In a recent study supported by the Marketing Science Institute, Donna Hoffman and Tom Novak of the University of California, Riverside and Praveen Kopalle of Dartmouth argue that the best consumers to assist companies with innovation are those who exhibit “emergent nature,” defined as the unique capability to imagine or envision how concepts might be developed so that they will be successful in the mainstream marketplace. As Hoffman elaborated in an interview, high emergent consumers “instinctively ‘get’ what’s attractive in a new product concept. At the same time, they can deconstruct and tweak a great idea to appeal to mainstream consumers.”
Drawing on research on information processing styles, Hoffman and her colleagues developed measures of experiential and rational thought to identify consumers with strong abilities as both intuitive and logical thinkers. Consumers who are capable of such a synergistic style of thought also show strong traits of reflectiveness, creativity, openness to experience, and visual processing. Importantly, while previous studies have developed measures to identify consumers high on “dispositional innovativeness” (i.e., inherently ‘creative’ consumers), this trait is distinct from that of emergent nature.

To validate use of their new construct, the authors ran a series of experiments where representative samples of consumers were asked to improve existing concepts for two diverse products: a secure “lock box” to receive items while homeowners are away and an oral care product. After the improved concepts were developed, participants evaluated them for their appeal and the likelihood that they would purchase such products. Existing and new scales were then administered to classify participants as either mainstream, lead users, dispositionally innovative or high on emergent nature.

While lead users and dispositionally innovative consumers did in fact develop concepts rated superior to those of mainstream consumers, results confirmed that emergent nature is a distinct trait associated with even better outcomes. Specifically, product concepts further developed by the “right” consumers, those high on emergent nature, were found significantly more appealing to (and have a higher purchase likelihood by) mainstream consumers compared to concepts developed by lead users, consumers high on dispositional innovativeness and average consumers.

Hoffman and her colleagues offer some hypotheses about the thought processes of emergent nature consumers that may explain their superior ability to develop concepts that appeal to a broader market. These “right” consumers tend to think experientially and are thus able to literally visualize creative uses of a new concept that intuitively “look” right to them. But they don’t stop there. Emergent nature consumers are also able to “employ a rational thinking style in a logical and analytic effort to evaluate and refine the concept.” The authors speculate that these two cognitive styles “work together in a complementary and iterative fashion,” resulting in concepts that are “creative” but also appeal to mainstream consumers.

The researchers’ advice to companies? Identify emergent consumers and involve them in the new product development process. “Nearly half of new consumer products fail in the marketplace,” Hoffman says. “Firms need better ways to turn promising ideas into solid new product successes. Emergent consumers may be invaluable in that process.”


From “The ‘Right’ Consumers for the Best Concepts: Identifying and Using Emergent Consumers in Developing New Products” (MSI Report No. 09-106)