Tanishq, India’s largest jewellery brand and a Tata group company, has recently launched a new line of jewellery: FQ diamonds for teen agers, and Iva collections, targeting working women. With the launch of these products, the company has created a new product category, which represent jewelleries that customers can wear every day.
Tanishq's new product lines were co-created with customers. The company became the country’s first jeweller to launch a crowdsourcing project. Launched in 2012, it’s ‘My Expression’, an open-for-all contest, aimed at identifying and rewarding the best creative minds across the country to create a new line of jewellery for working women. Tanishq collected ideas through online polls, online vote and a micro portal for idea submission.
In an exclusive interview to India CoCreates, Mr Gaurav Bhuwan, Head, Marketing, Tanishq India, shared his company’s views on co-creation, how and why it designed the My Expressions co-creation project.Excerpts from his interview:
"Wherever there is customer involvement there is an opportunity for co-creation" Younomy: Co-creation is emerging mainstream. What do you think are the potential business processes where co-creation can be applied by a fashion jewellery product company like Tanishq?
Gaurav Bhuwan: Co-creation can be applied in a lot of areas in jewellery making and marketing such as product design, creation, and advertising. We can get specialized technical inputs from people. I would say that with the participation of customers, we can co-identify even the right retail access points. Wherever there is customer involvement, there is an opportunity for co-creation.
Younomy:Generally, businesses experiment with co-creation mostly in the areas where the participation of customers is inevitable. What were the specific objectives or goals for you to try co-creation in the first place?
Gaurav Bhuwan: The jewellery consumer is evolving very fast. She has lots of opinions. She wants to have a say in everything. She demands two way communication. So, there is a need for jewellery brands to create channels for customer participation. This is the key reason.
With specific reference to My Expressions, we wanted to co-create a new jewellery category itself. Today, the working women in their late twenties and early thirties feel that jewellery is a traditional and serious product, suitable only for special occasions. This is detrimental to the growth of the business. When there are formal ware in clothing for working women, they have to use same old jewellery for office as well. There is a need to evolve a new work-wear jewellery category. For this, we need to take the consumer on board, get her ideas, and engage with her in the process of making her jewellery
Younomy:It is considered important to have an exclusive social co-creation team or a team with specific co-creation mandates to manage the co-creation project. Sometimes that requires tapping the expertise of consultants or partnering with external organizations. How did Tanishq go about building a team for its first ever co-creation contest?
Gaurav Bhuwan:We did not have a dedicated team for co-creation yet but we had people who were working on this project full time throughout the contest period. Our team comprises people from marketing, manufacturing, and design. It is a multi-functional team. Fortunately, there is a top management alignment. We believe that the philosophy of co-creation is real and it is here to stay.
We have tied up with an agency to do social media monitoring. End of the day, we are largely an offline company, but our customers are largely online. Any experience they have with the brand gets narrated online. So it is import to find and listen to the online conversations that are happening around us.
Younomy:Who are your target participants of crowdsourcing/co-creation projects? What is their typical demographic profile? How active are they in social media channels?
Gaurav Bhuwan:We are aiming to engage with working women in the age group of 25-35. But ideas can come from anyone - even possibly from men. Our target group is quite active in social media. We have a strong presence in Facebook with over 3,33,000 friends. We have been active in Twitter, and Youtube too. Younomy: What do you think are the factors that motivate jewellery customers to take part in co-creation? Gaurav Bhuwan: Though monetary rewards are important, that’s not the main reason why people spend their time for co-creation. Customers want to share, want to participate in the creation of products they like. When a brand gives the platform, it becomes the starting point. When there are brands that do not talk, they find us somebody willing to listen to their ideas, and ask their suggestions. That is the key motivator.