I just took a quick shot at delineating my understanding of the overlapping of the two realms both academically and in practice (see figure). Please feel free to comment or share your adaptations and alterations.

Open innovation and experience co-creation – like Romeo and Juliet

So far I only see new product development and experience marketing intertwined to some extent. Usually co-creation initiatives serve one purpose or the other. To a large extent a lack of awareness but also departmental self-interests and the more time-consuming process of coordination between different departments may account for open innovation and experience co-creation initiatives often being carried out separatly. Open innovation initiatives are designed to provide the outcome demanded by R&D or product management not proactively utilizing their impact on experience and relationship marketing, for instance. The benefits which remain unused or only partially used are remarkable considering that these benefits are not directly addressed in the planning and execution phase. In many cases those effects are nothing more than side-effects – often unnoticed, almost never sufficiently appreciated.

Why experience co-creation favors open innovation

Both sides of co-creation appear to be deeply interconnected and prone to mutually benefit from each other. A unique and compelling co-creation experience, for instance, allows users to immerse themselves in the innovation task putting them into a flow state conducive to perform creative tasks. Since recruiting the right people to contribute to an open innovation initiative it is crucial to inspire users so that they might become brand evangelists who spread positive word-of-mouth. Thus, a captivating user experience helps to establish a company as a co-creation partner of choice.

Why open innovation favors experience co-creation

Being closely tied to an open innovation context means for users to become part of the core of the value-added chain – of new product development itself. Imagine how much more intriguing an experience is to users in such a setting being confronted with a real task as opposed to a blatantly contrived branding initiative. Open innovation initiatives utilizing crowdsourcing principles, i.e. to co-innovate with a huge number of user, also offer a lot of points of contact with (potential) customers and, hence, are a great opportunity to develop a closer relationship with those users. Notably, experience co-creation in the stage of product development is a powerful tool when the co-created product is going to be market as a „community-generated“ product. Tchibo Ideas, the open innovation platform of the German consumer goods retailer Tchibo, is an excellent example of experience co-creation spanning the stages of new product development and marketing/sales (examples of new products conceived by the Tchibo Ideas community can be found (and bought) here: https://www.tchibo-ideas.de/index.php/loesungen/realisierte).