Press Release August 2007

InterQuest recommends companies to exploit the social media and online communities in NPD and gathering new consumer driven ideas.

Research in Finland: People willing to switch to greener lifestyle more than expected

People are surprisingly willing to change their lifestyle greener. This turned out in an online research conducted by a digital market research company InterQuest this summer. The research project was to test people's willingness to participate in online research community by doing practically those "green acts" and discussing environmental issues online.

- The members of the InterQuest Green Community were surprisingly active and ready to participate in this voluntary environmental work party. In three weeks time, almost 200 environmentally friendly ideas were generated. Most of them were down to earth and easy to adopt in real life, states Research Consultant Nina Kalliovaara from InterQuest.

The members of the Green Community stimulated each other in adopting the environmentally friendly ideas and shared their opinions. They also improved the ideas together, Kalliovaara continues.

InterQuest recommends companies to exploit the social media and online communities in NPD and gathering new ideas from consumers.

- By discussing with their customers in online communities, companies can have a window to their consumers' everyday life. By participating in online communities, companies also express their willingness to listen and learn from their customers, states Ville Österlund, Managing Director of InterQuest.

Getting into action

InterQuest recruited 150 18 to 65-year-old Finns with environmentally neutral attitudes to the Green Community for three weeks. Every week consisted of environmentally conscious theme, personal tasks to complete and online discussion to participate.

For example, during the last Green Community week, "Diminishing the Ecological Footprint", the members were told to cut their water consumption while e.g. taking a shower. By cutting the time spent in the shower by two minutes, over 12 000 litres of water were saved altogether. "If there's a permanent change in the members' behaviour, this means of 468 000 water litres saved annually concerning a community of 150 people", Kalliovaara sums up.

- It's easier to change one's attitudes and lifestyle if there's a supporting community of similarly thinking people. If we could inspire 150 Finns to take part in this voluntary environmental work party, and there clearly appeared to be savings, what would happen if we could stimulate thousand fold people? Österlund says.

This result supports the findings from InterQuest's earlier study this year showing that about 40% of the active Finnish Internet users are keen to participate in a company-related product development research through online communities.