Have you ever consulted Wikipedia? You probably did. But have you ever created or adapted a page on the world’s largest reference website? Your answer is probably “no” which is not surprising; only less than 1% of the 1.7 billion unique visitors a month are active contributors.
Having observed the same phenomenon on photo-sharing website Flickr, Bradly Horowitz, VP at Google, was inspired to formulate the 90-9-1 rule of participation inequality. This rule states that, out of every 100 people, 90 merely consume content, 9 will like, share or react to what is created, and only 1 will actually create something. The same goes for consumers, as different people come with different skills and competences.
We found that this ‘90-9-1 rule’ also exists in the context of brand-consumer collaborations. Our experience shows that the significant majority of people (around 90%) are able to and like to share feedback. Some 9% are extremely passionate and can curate. And only 1% is truly innovative and creative.