In order to drive innovation and sustain its market leading position in the field of hotel TV solutions, Philips Hotel TV created the ‘CoCreation Expert Team’. This panel of independent industry leaders is bringing together years of expertise to test Philips products and offer insight on how Philips can continue to develop market-leading solutions to enhance hotel guests’ experiences. The team includes senior management from Philips’ major hotel partners Starwood, Marriott and Accor; leading hospitality industry consultants Ted Horner and Bryan Steele; and Ian Millar, of Lausanne Hotel School.

All team members had the possibility to test and experience the MediaSuite product. During the project Mr. Staal travelled around the world to talk to everyone of them in person. Together with the team members he shared thoughts, experiences and opinions about IPTV hotel trends, as well as they gave their feedback on the product itself. How it helped and a lot more about this co-creative project in the following interview:

How did you hear from co-creation?

As marketer I had read about it in several magazines, blogs and other relevant literature and always wanted to involve customers at a product launch.

Did you or Philips conduct other co-creation projects before?

I have never, not sure Philips has ever.

How did you choose the member of the co-creation team?

I wanted to have a spread of different stakeholders, so that’s why we included the main three hotel partners Starwood, Marriott and Accor, plus I’ve asked two known industry independent consultants and a known hotel professor who we’ve done business with before. Various stakeholders with in-room technology in common, but with different perspectives would bring a rounded approach to launching our new product.

Was the intention behind this collaborative approach clear to your partners, and if not, how did you explain it?

I hope it was . I’ve briefed them all via phone and email and when all six had agreed to join, I sent out a formal CoCreation document where all expectations, timelines and goals were described.

How did the hoteliers react? Do they realize the possibilities and advantages behind the co-creative approach?

You will note in the video interviews (see below), that all hoteliers love the idea that a vendor starts interacting with a hotelier, before the launch rather than after launch for a sale. They’ve never seen it before and think it’s very innovative and relevant, more vendors should do this.

You said you travelled a lot to visit each expert and talk to him. Was there also some kind of workshop where everybody came together?

I really wanted this to happen but because they’re across all continents (US, EU, AUS), I couldn’t make this happen, therefore we hosted an online roundtable discussion two weeks ago to have 90min discussion about IPTV and its trends. This was hosted our media partner Cleverdis and set-up by Philips and will be released through Cleverdis’ website and newsletters just after summer.

Did the experts’ experiences with the test devices help to improve the final product?

Yes they have certainly done so! We had launched a survey amongst more than 7.000 travelers and this has proven to be very useful statistics. The CoCreation Experts though have given us first-hand experience and feedback which has provided us with the qualitative insights we needed to translate the survey input we had before.

Have there been any agreements or contracts concerning intellectual property?

Yes we always have Non-Disclosure-Agreements signed, and had this already set-up for Starwood, Marriott and Accor as long-time partners.

If you compare product development with and without co-creation, which advantages/ disadvantages do you see financially, organizationally, and in terms of the result?

Financially and organizationally, it’s a matter of time, priorities and travel. When you see the importance you can free up time and it’s proving to be worthwhile.

Do you see other possibilities for co-creation in hospitality?

I would love to work with a designer to get a true signature product on the market, but knowing with our vast production schedules, this is impossible. But with the feedback received from hoteliers, and not only the ones in our team, but also beyond, the message that Philips is doing this is spreading fast and is very much appreciated. So more companies should pick up on this new way of product management and marketing.

Do you think your project partners will try co-creation during their own projects?

Did they share plans with you or maybe ask you for help? No idea if they will after this but I know hoteliers like Starwood and Choice are already testing with frequent travelers on automated check-in for example, not sure this is CoCreation though…

Why should anybody else use the co-creation approach?

When relevant for the experts and the potential buyers and you have the possibility to still amend the product, go for it!

What would advise people in hospitality if they planned a co-creation project?

Speak to you! No; pick the right target market, see who’s well know in that market and your field of expertise and try to interest them for joining the team. If you have one lined up, the rest is eager to follow suit. They’re in it for the people and network as well! Involve knowledgeable customers, who can really contribute to your creation as well as be a good sample of your target audience to be relevant in your final product launch.

It is maybe to early to draw a bottom line, but maybe you can give me a sneak preview: Was the effort worth the result? Did you find something out, you never even thought of?

It’s already been worth the effort. Our industry is speaking of us like they’ve never done before; it’s been great PR and we’ve not even started our actual launch… If we wouldn’t have done this, we wouldn’t have added our social media apps on the TV for example and we wouldn’t have hired a team of engineers and user experience designers to work on dedicated hospitality apps. We simply wouldn’t have known this was the key interest to set us apart from and the normal home market and from competition. The guest survey had revealed it and I had shared my views but the CoCreation team gave the final feedback that gave me the power to tell (Product) Management to go for this and change the product.

Would you do it again?

Certainly! It’s just a fun way of doing business!

Thank you very much for your time!

Clevedis also published a very interesting interview on this project. You should definitely check it out.

Interviews with the team members on YouTube:

Ted Horner (Senior International Hospitality Consultan at JBA Consulting Engineers, HTHG Executive Advisor)

Ted Horner: As a person who’s spent most of his life as an independent technology consultant, the opportunity to work with a vendor to help with the design and creation, as an incubator of ideas, is too good of an opportunity to pass up. I’m certainly heavily involved in in-room guest technology and TV, today, is an integral part of that.

Bryan Hammer (Director of IT EAME Starwood Hotels and Resorts, HTNG Form CoChair)

Bryan Hammer: I joined the CoCreation Team because I think it’s a fantastic idea, and actually pretty innovative, for a supplier to engage a hotel and get their feedback while in the development stage of a product. It’s something that doesn’t happen a lot in our industry and I think it should happen a lot more. It’s great to have the back and forth engagement and open discussions between consultants, hoteliers, vendors and developers.

Ian Millar (Deputy Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, HFTP Executive Board Member)

Ian Millar: [As an industry,] we’re not very proactive when it comes to technology and we need to be. Our guests of today and the future are going to look at tehcnology as part of the [in-room] experience that we are creating. That’s why I got involved with the CoCreation team.

Bryan Steele (Managing Director Jireh-Tek Limited, HTNG Advisory Board Member)

Bryan Steele: I think being a part of the CoCreation team is interesting because it’s bringing together Philips as a manufacturer with experienced consultants,a hotel school and hoteliers to talk about where this product should be going, where we think the market is going and if this product is going to meet that market need.

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You may wonder, what these “White Box Events” are about. The “White Box” resembles a purpose-built hotel rooms featuring a bed and the 55” MediaSuite TV. The interactive get together will be staged in the lobbies of the following hotels between 9am and 7pm local time:

- London – 1st September, The Cumberland Hotel, Great Cumberland Place London W1C 1LZ, United Kingdom
- Paris – 6th September, Pullman Paris Montparnasse, 19 rue du commandant Mouchotte, 75014 Paris, France
- Amsterdam – 9th September, Amsterdam Marriott Hotel, Stadhouderskade 12, 1054 ES Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Milan – 15th September, Hotel Straf, Via San Raffaele, 3, 20121 Milano, Italy

Building on the theme of interactivity, visitors will be invited to give feedback by leaving photos, videos and comments via a dedicated campaign portal on Facebook. Followers of the Facebook page will have the opportunity to receive a 15% discount on all Philips products, and if they leave a comment, photo or video, they will have the chance to win a Philips 32” LED TV.

To register your interest in attending or for more information, connect with Philips’ Hotel TV team at www.facebook.com/philipshoteltv or through Twitter @PhilipsHotelTV. For more information, visit www.philips.com/hoteltv .

All pictures courtesy of Philips Hotel TV.

My name is Tobias Koehler and I am a postgraduate student in the International Tourism Management program at Heilbronn University/ Germany. I am writing my thesis about co-creation in the hospitality industry.

After reading a lot about service-dominant (S-D) logic, which builds the foundation for co-creation, I realized several things: This topic is amazing, kind of pioneering and it perfectly fits in our time. S-D logic is not yet a fully grown theory of marketing but it is already called a paradigmatic challenge to marketing orthodoxy (Ballantyne, Williams, & Aitken, 2011).

I myself also love to challenge and being challenged, so I needed to find out more. What I found was a great idea that still is evolving and discussed very openly. I checked out YouTube to find some interviews with Robert Lusch or Stephen Vargo, who set the first mile-stone of service-dominant logic with their article “Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing” in 2004. In one interview Mr. Lusch said one thing that finally gave me the last push to create this blog: “If you believe in S-D logic, you should act by end endorse those principles.” and “We all need to work together to help it evolve.”.

Courtesy of Marc A. Sporys

In the spirit of S-D logic and co-creation I want to share my knowledge, my thoughts and want to let YOU be part of the journey I am taking with the goal of a master’s thesis that contributes to the S-D ecosystem.

You maybe wonder what I can contribute to this complex topic. I don’t exactly know yet, but we are about to find out during the next few months . What I do know is that I want to apply the principles of S-D logic to the hospitality industry and find out about the status quo of co-creation in the hotel business. It is going to be interesting to investigate how S-D logic can work or actually works in a “service industry”. Or how co-creation can be used to optimize processes and service quality in a hotel and contribute to the customer’s overall experience of a stay. One goal of mine is to make the topic more tangible for not only for students but also for practitioners that may not be familiar with the latest developments on this topic.

During the next weeks I will post detailed information about the topic of S-D logic, helpful links, tools and my thoughts. Some articles will be excerpts from my master thesis. Posting those, I hope to get some feedback or questions in order to see, where I need to improve something to make it more understandable. Basically, what I am writing is a kind of “open-source master’s thesis”. You as my audience are my critics, proofreaders and inspiration.

I invite you to come on this journey with me and discover co-creation in the hospitality industry!

PS: If I refer to some articles in the text, you will always find a list at the bottom of each post.

References
Ballantyne, D., Williams, J., & Aitken, R. (2011). Introduction to service-dominant logic: From propositions to practice. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(2), 179-180. doi:10.1016/j.indmarman.2010.06.025

Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004). Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing. The Journal of Marketing, 68(1), 1-17. doi:10.2307/30161971