Co-creation appears to be a modern marketing strategy, which implies designing a product or a service cooperating with customers. This approach is considered to be beneficial in a great number of ways. It contributes to avoiding the lack of ideas regarding product improvement and makes the relationships between a company and clients stronger and more trustful. MAC cosmetics is a business, which is actively developing and has to resist strong competitiveness in the beauty field. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to apply four customer co-creation models and the DART model to this company and illustrate how social media facilitate this process.
First of all, it should be mentioned that there are the fleeing types of customer co-creation: collaborating, tinkering, co-designing, and submitting. The first model implies paying a client for improving the current products, and the company has little control of the process (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). This model is difficult to be applied for MAC, though it may be advantageous. However, it is crucial that customers have got acquainted with the process of producing cosmetics (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). For instance, MAC may attract experienced and authoritative make-up artists to make their products easier to use for professional purposes. They may advise on the drawback of particular cosmetic items and introduce the ways of making them better. Tinkering involves working on the product with particular restrictions set by the company. In this context, MAC may limit the customer with the ingredients in the process of improving the product line (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). In addition, it may ask the participants to adhere to the concept of the company.
The third model, co-designing, may appear the easiest to be released in practice. In addition, it tends to cover a great number of consumers worldwide, which is beneficial for promoting the company. MAC may organize a contest for the best design of a new product. Another option implies collecting feedback on the convenience of using the currently released cosmetic items and proposals for improvements. Submitting includes a selection of ideas, which are presented by the company, with restrictions on contributions. In this context, the most effective proposal will also be a contest. However, in this case, MAC should present their limitation precisely and outline the aspects, which may be changed. This may also regard the design of cosmetic items, though, for instance, MAC state the colour or the topic.
It should be admitted that social media facilitate co-creation for the Mac cosmetics brand to a large extent. As it has been advised earlier, contests are worth conducting in order to enhance new ideas and strengthen the relationships with clients. MAC is an international brand, and in order to cover a threat number of its customers, social media may be used (Séguin and Nadeau, 2018; Lember, Brandsen, and Tõnurist, 2019). In addition, digital technologies are also important for contacting specialists, as it is outlined in the first and second models (Séguin and Nadeau, 2018). Therefore, today, social media is a vital channel for cooperation, as it allows to make communication rapid and effective.
Adhering to customer co-creation models of any type, it is vital to apple the DART model. It includes Dialogue, Access, Risk assessment, Transparency, and it appears to be helpful for defining value cooperation precisely (Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2004). For instance, discussing the option of collaborating model for MAC cosmetics, it is essential to stick to risk assessment in order to guarantee the quality of the product. Following this principle, it is possible to establish a conversation between a company and clients, which will imply the benefit in the long run.
In conclusion, it may be stated that customer cooperation is effective for improving the outcomes of a business. It is helpful for strengthening the relationships with clients. Moreover, it appears to be resultative in the context of collecting new and fresh ideas on improving products. MAC cosmetics have a range of options for adhering to this approach, which is advantageous for promoting a company and make it competitive in the context of the various beauty market.
References
Séguin, B. and Nadeau, J. (2018) ‘The role of social media in the co-creation of value in relationship marketing: a multi-domain study’, Journal of Strategic Marketing. Web.
Prahalad, C. K. and Ramaswamy, V. (2004) ‘Co-creation experiences: The next practice in value creation’, Journal of interactive marketing, 18(3), pp. 5-14.
Lember, V., Brandsen T., and Tõnurist, P. (2019) ‘The potential impacts of digital technologies on co-production and co-creation’, Public Management Review, 21(11).