June 2025

This essay was written in partnership with innovation agency dotdotdash

Customer co-creation has gone from niche innovation tactic to cultural norm. Once reserved for product tweaks and top-line feedback, it now touches everything from brand design to corporate governance. According to TBWA research, nearly a third (29%) of adults globally believe it’s becoming more important to “participate in collaborative projects via co-creation, decentralization, or crowdsourcing,” and 15% would spend more for a brand that lets them do this. At Backslash, we call this Neo-Collectivism: a cultural push to redistribute power at scale and build from the bottom-up. Let down by the limits of individualism and skeptical of institutions and algorithms, people are no longer content to be passive participants in extractive systems. They want in. 

At its best, co-creation fills blind spots, surfaces new demand signals, and builds stronger cultural resonance. But as it becomes the default mode of brand-building, co-creation also carries a quiet risk: the slip into amorphousness. It goes something like this. Companies rush to open the gates—collecting campaign ideas, launching Discord servers, making products customizable—but often without a clear framework for what role they, as the brand, are meant to play. The result is a kind of brand drift where companies are overly reactive, flattening their identities into whatever their loudest fans demand in the moment. Co-creation without strategy becomes crowdsourcing with a logo slapped on top.  

This potential slide into shapelessness mirrors what we call “culture rot”: the tendency for brands to latch onto fleeting micro-trends, aesthetics, or internet buzzwords in an attempt to appear relevant, all without meaningful investment or an original point of view. In trying to be ‘of the culture,’ they end up just being ‘of the moment’—and then forgotten just as quickly. Similarly, brands engaging in co-creation need to understand that it’s an ongoing dialogue, not a delegation.

The most successful examples of co-creation—think Glossier’s Into The Gloss beauty blog or LEGO’s Ideas platform—work because the brand sets the vision and defines the guardrails. Outside the business world, few do this better than global K-pop sensation BTS. The band has built an expansive universe that spans webtoons (Save Me), mobile games (BTS World), and even a fictional narrative called the “Bangtan Universe”—all of which are designed to be decoded and shaped by fans. On Weverse, fans co-create everything from merch to campaign themes, sometimes even voting on what cities BTS should visit next or what content gets prioritized. And in games like In the SEOM, fans aren’t just passive players—they manage in-game versions of BTS members and contribute to an ever-evolving narrative. It’s a powerful example of what happens when you don’t just give people tools to participate, but give them a world worth shaping. 
 
Looking forward, maintaining a clear vision will only become more critical as AI floods the scene. Generative AI tools are allowing anyone to create on-command—turning a process that once required meaningful effort into a low-bar, high-output game. That’s not to say everything made with AI is low quality, but rather, that there will be more low-quality outputs to sift through. We’ll likely see co-creation campaigns generate thousands of concepts that are technically impressive but conceptually shallow, increasingly shaped by algorithms rather than the lived experiences of real communities. And in turn, brands may end up chasing the most viral, most aesthetic, or most widely liked ideas, regardless of whether they further the brand’s mission or create distinction in the marketplace. This is where not just listening to your fans, but giving them something real to rally behind, will be essential. 

Before we outline the new rules for brands to abide by, let’s first look at how co-creation has evolved over time. There are, of course, plenty of outliers within these three ‘eras’, but they capture the biggest shifts in both brand execution and customer expectations over the last two decades.

Customer co-creation first began taking shape in the early 2000s, catalyzed by the rise of social media and digital communities. In these early days, co-creation was mostly synonymous with crowdsourced feedback—a way for brands to “listen” to their customers en masse. Think My Starbucks Idea or Dell IdeaStorm: platforms that promised open innovation but functioned more like glorified suggestion boxes. There were few guardrails, very little follow-through, and even less transparency into if and how ideas were being implemented.  And at the time, that was good enough. Just the act of soliciting feedback on an open platform was seen as bold (keep in mind that Facebook and Twitter were still nascent, so this kind of public criticism wasn’t yet normalized), and customers were happy to feel like they were being heard. These were simpler times, long before people were aware of the many ways to monetize their intellectual property online and before influencers were copyrighting their viral dances. 

Fast-forward to today, and co-creation has gone high-tech. The widespread availability of generative AI tools means fans can produce brand-aligned content on demand—no technical skills or special software required. But while participation is easy, the payoff is often less clear. Campaigns such as Burger King’s “Million Dollar Whopper”, Coca-Cola’s “Create Real Magic” platform, and H&M’s text-to-image merch creation have invited users to bring their ideas to life in an instant. The scale is impressive, and the level of creativity is often surprising. But with so many open-ended calls to “submit your [product idea, fan art, custom design] here,” the line between meaningful collaboration and digital dumping grounds is getting blurry. Take the “Million Dollar Whopper” campaign as an example. Using AI, fans were invited to create their dream Whopper for a shot at a $1 million dollar grand prize and the chance for three winners to have their burger sold at Burger Kings across the U.S. But what about the million other submissions that are essentially feeding Burger King’s innovation funnel for free? If those ideas help inform future menu items, is that a fair trade? Co-creation is often framed as fan empowerment, but it’s starting to feel like the benefits overwhelmingly flow to the brand. And people are taking notice.

This model will soon reach a breaking point. As generative creativity becomes ubiquitous, the next evolution of co-creation will require something deeper: transparency and reciprocity. People will begin to question why they’re giving away their intellectual property for free. And the idea that it’s an honor to be featured by a brand will lose its luster. In response, leading brands will move beyond spectacle and start building infrastructure for true partnership. Think co-branded product lines with fans, closed-loop design labs with select contributors, and shared revenue or credit for substantial contributions. The future will see a shift from co-creation as a marketing stunt to co-creation as serious business strategy. 

In this next, more discerning era, brands will need to acknowledge the power dynamics at play and ensure a mutual exchange at every step. When leveraged correctly, fandoms can catapult your business into unexpected territories. But when wronged, they can just as easily destroy it in an instant.  

Opening your co-creation engine to everyone from the jump might sound inclusive, but often leads to diluted quality and unclear outcomes. A more effective approach is to start small by launching in closed communities first. Curate a specially-selected group of contributors—fans, creators, outside experts, tastemakers—and let them demonstrate what’s possible. Not only does this allow for refinement, it arms you with high-value proof-of-concepts that will spark envy among wider circles. You can then use these outputs to show off the full creative ecosystem. How did the submissions evolve at each step? What did their ideas influence? How were they rewarded? The clearer and more transparent the value chain, the more compelling it will be to future participants.  

Runway is doing this well with its AI video creation platform. Before scaling, it invested in a tight crew of creators, built a fund for them, and made their work highly visible across the platform. That visibility created aspiration. People don’t just want to use Runway—they want to be part of the Runway scene. That’s the power of starting small and making the community aspect matter. 

It’s time to move past one-off, winner-takes-all co-creation contests. They’re overdone, minimally rewarding, and—ironically—they usually end up killing the most creative ideas anyway. Instead, brands should treat co-creation as a living R&D ecosystem where ideas can be remixed and refined over time. Imagine a gaming company that hosts a modular worldbuilding platform year-round, not as a stunt but as an always-on innovation lab. Users could submit concepts, see how others build on their submissions, and vote on how the world and its characters evolve with each level of the game. Similar to GitHub, each iteration would be fully traceable. Not only does this give people a reason to keep coming back, but this level of granularity is also essential for crediting and compensating contributors fairly down the line (more on this in rule #3).  
 
These open ecosystems need stewards as well. Not bots, but real humans. High-level brand employees or trained community leaders should engage directly with contributors, offering feedback, spotlighting promising ideas, and guiding iterations in a timely manner. Without this, , it starts to feel like you’re submitting into a black box. The goal is to make co-creation feel like a conversation with a clear moderator. Brands might even consider a tiered contributor program where participants level up from idea-generator to collaborator to certified “editor.” 

The lower the cost of creativity, the more disposable IP starts to feel. We’re already seeing this play out with dupe culture, where designs and ideas are being copied and remixed faster than anyone can be credited. AI only accelerates this. But even as we move toward a world where creation is nearly effortless, the reality is that humans still crave authorship. People want to know they made something that matters and that they own a piece of it.  

That’s why brands need to start designing co-creation models that recognize and reward creative ownership. This could mean fractional royalties for contributors whose ideas influence products, or tiered recognition through co-branding credits and exclusive brand access. 
 
Some of the most interesting examples of this can be found in niche music communities. Consider Subvert, an artist co-op that enables multiple creatives to operate under one legal structure, with shared ownership and royalties across projects. Or, for an even more advanced example, look to Holly Herndon: an artist and musician who is not only encouraging fans to create art using her voice and image, but has also developed the back-end infrastructure to pay them for their works. Provenance is tracked through the public Holly+ DAO, and any profits made from the sale of approved works using Holly’s likeness are shared between the creator (50%), the DAO (40%), and Holly herself (10%). This is the kind of infrastructure that more brands will need to build: systems that make it easy to credit and pay collaborators at scale. 

We’re all worldbuilders now. With generative tools and no-code platforms at their fingertips, people can spin up interactive stories and virtual universes on command. And increasingly, they’ll expect brands to meet them inside those self-made playgrounds.  
 
While some co-creation initiatives will still require a closed ecosystem that’s entirely owned by the brand—either due to specific technical requirements or the need to reach a very niche community—many others can be achieved by plugging into existing sandboxes like Roblox and Fortnite. Not only does this require less upfront investment, it also offers a direct gateway to millions of the savviest hands-on creators. This is where players like Fenty Beauty are finding success. The brand invited Roblox users to design virtual lip glosses, gamified the experience with in-game quests and community voting, and ultimately brought one fan-created product to life both digitally and physically. 
 
The next frontier will be about becoming multi-verse ready. In a decentralized world where digital property is owned by users and shared freely across platforms, brands will need to offer playable assets that can be dragged and dropped into different worlds with ease. LEGO is already preparing for this future by developing tools and APIs that make its IP interoperable across virtual environments—effectively turning LEGO into a universal design language for digital co-creation. 

The underlying theme across these four rules is that co-creation isn’t to be treated as a trend. Yes, marketing is a key piece of the puzzle, but everything covered above—from traceable design systems to fractional ownership models—requires heavy innovation across legal, finance, data management, and more. Without the right back-end infrastructure in place, co-creation will begin and end at the campaign level.  
 
The brands who put co-creation at the center of their business model have a lot to gain. For the first year-and-a-half, Glossier didn’t spend any money on marketing. Ninety percent of their growth was owned, earned, or peer-to-peer. Similarly, Fortnite and Roblox aren’t multi-billion-dollar successes just because people love video games. It’s also because they’ve figured out how to turn players into creators. Roblox has more than 40 million user-generated games, seventy of which have over one billion plays each. 
 
With influencer culture hitting a point of fatigue, this kind of authentic evangelism is only becoming more valuable. In the future, real traction will come from the micro-communities that feel personally invested in a brand’s success—not because they’re paid to care for the duration of a campaign, but because they’ve had a hand in shaping (and owning) what it becomes.