I believe Co Creation is one way to go forward in developing innovative ideas. In the past when focus groups were the norm - I always pushed Creatives and Designers to get involved inside the group. Now a new trend has appeared from market research agencies as an alternative to focus groups - Co Creation! Hurrah. Often it is the research people that are leading the Co Creation process from a market research company - moderating and developing within a series of different workshops.

If the researcher has not been trained as a copywriter or designer how can they grasp what areas to go deeper into for real insights that can inspire Co Creation. I believe it is not the function of the designer or creative to dig deeper for insights that will leverage innovation but it is great they add to the conversation.

So how do the researchers do it? Well I know how they sell it to the client - we involve everyone within the team - taking consumer insights and making decisions together. Sure sounds great - but it is still down to the researcher to engage the consumer and creatives down an interesting path.

Trust me no researcher is that creative to understand and steer creativity within an innovation workshop. They are good at moderation and facilitating the workshop but how do they know which rich zone of insights can leverage new innovative ideas.

Maybe we need the moderator to bring it all together but the creative brand planner who is an expert at leveraging insights must steer the way into new zones. This can then be discussed within the team of creatives, consumers and brand management.

So when a research agency say Co Creation make sure they have a moderator and creative brand planner on their team. I believe you need both because the planner needs to think and not steer all conversations. Also a real CREATIVE brand planner is not born overnight and needs to have true experience in leveraging creativity. I believe a true Creative brand planner can come from any background such as a psychologist, journalist, detective as long as they are creative and have ideas AND have the experience to understand how insights can be leveraged into new zones!