Collaboration + Buying = Co-buying

I was reading trendwatching.com today. It's written by a group of people professionally tuned into spotting the latest and greatest trends. One of their latest ones is a new term - Crowd Clout.

Put simply, Crowd Clout is the notion that many people can come together to get a good deal on purchases. Now clearly this idea isn't going to work for everyone or everything - waiting two weeks, while enough people decide they want to save 5% on a pint of milk is never going to take off!

However, they have put some interesting thoughts into how 'Crowd Clout' can be used in the realms of collaboration and crowdsourcing. They highlight two companies that seems to be getting it right, or at least trying hard to learn some lessons about how to get brands and consumers to work together. These are Sellaband - the crowdsourcing record label, where the fans (or in their language 'believers') put money up for the production costs of an album. The other is Crowdspirit, which attempts to involve the consumer in the entire production process of low-cost electronic goods.

For me 'Crowd Clout' is a bit off the mark. They made one reference in the article to 'co-buying'. Personally, I think this term is much more fitting for the field of co-collaboration. Co-buying should be seen as representing a key stage in the consumer/brand collaboration relationship.

After all, if you've collaborated with a group of other consumers, you should all be able to get together and buy the fruits of your labour, at a reduced price. From a brand point of view, co-buying should be seen as a useful, self perpetuating selling proposition.

I have a feeling there's more to this - Watch this space for further updates.

Categories: Co-creation, Crowdsourcing.

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