Encouraging and rewarding consumer creativity in new product development processes: How to motivate consumers involved in creative contests?

The integration of consumers into new product development processes is a promising approach that triggers original ideas faster for brands. This research seeks to determine which are the rewards and interactions that enhance creativity in creativity contests. The theoretical framework relies on consumer creativity, brand feedback role during new product development processes and the effects of rewards on creativity. Findings of an experimentation conducted with 180 individuals show that reputation rewards associated with brand feedback can play a role at least as important as monetary rewards. The results show that the feedback of the brand is a moderating variable in the relationship between creativity and rewards and that associating brand feedback with reputation reward strongly stimulates creativity.