Posted on Monday 24 March 2008
Chrysler announced today that it’s recruiting members of the public for its new ‘Customer Advisory Board’, an online forum where individuals can voice their ideas about what they want to see in a new car. Anyone can join the forum, including consumers who have never previously owned a Chrysler product. The idea of a forum, rather than using expensive and time-consuming focus groups, has been a long time coming considering the amount of free ideas and feedback Chrysler could gain with relatively little effort.
Up to 5,000 individuals will be selected for membership, with a focus not just on ordinary complaints but ideas and features that consumers would like to see in future Chrysler products. The members of the advisory board will also get to view online videos and presentations from Chrysler, and consumer ideas gleaned from the online forum could be hitting drawing boards within two weeks of their suggestion.
Similar attempts to include customers in product design and promotion directly have been pioneered by world brands such as Apple and Nike, but an undertaking of this sort is supposedly a first for the auto industry. Typically focus groups have served the purpose of the new Advisory Board, but Chrysler expects that such a large cross-section of the community will be able to give a more cohesive image as to what consumers want.
To be eligible for the Customer Advisory Board, applicants need to be 18 years or older and must have a valid U.S. driver’s license. If you fit this description and are interested you can head over to ChryslerListens and submit an application today.
WHAT IS IT?! Isn’t Chrysler in enough trouble that they resort to idiocies like this? Don’t they know the old *what do you call a giraffe - a horse designed by committee* joke?
They need 5000 people to tell them how to design cars? how about the millions of consumers who now loathe thier cars? all they need is one great head designer who understands and has passion for great design, quality and engineering and not someone who’s too busy spreading thier legs and bending over to the bean counters
I feel Chrysler needs to take a good break from their average label, and accept the family of their performance. Dodge has such history, not simply in America, but relatively international recognition as well. A suit that needs to be tried on and fitted to a complete turnover to the economical, design and performance efficiency their superior has come to begin structured development with, the Challenger is simply not going to take the headstrong mentality to the coming market changes, unless traits from this model are implemented amongst more than a single niche product.
Shit, if Chrysler needs help from the public they can ask me i got a lot of car designs i made myself to make beautiful cars. Its my dream to design cars for a living.
I have and Idea that I think is a great safty factor for todays cars: My idea is called “passing sensor”. If you change lanea on a four lane highway you will notice there is a blind spot at 45 degrees. To prevent you from making the move you turn on your turn signal and if there is a car in that area a sensor will pick the car up and let you know not to change lanes. This can be accomliished by attaching a motion sensor to your tail lighe assembly so when you turn on your turn signal iit would activate the sensor and warn you not to move. I checked with the state highway department and they said that 60% of the accidents on major highways was cause changing lanes