Consumers will no longer settle for one-way, impersonal and generic interactions with brands that feel transactional. If you want their loyalty, they need to feel valued and, increasingly, want a hand in shaping the experiences and products they buy into. The shift from passive buyers to active participants has given rise to the ‘pro-sumer’: part producer, part consumer, says Peter Bell, VP of EMEA Marketing at Twilio.

More than just a label

What makes this shift significant isn’t just the pro-sumer label, it’s the behaviour behind it.

The pro-sumer era effectively means you’re running a round-the-clock virtual focus group. Every review, every share, every comment your customers make tells you what they truly value. Brands willing to listen and act on that feedback can build trust and stronger connections with their customers.

Listening, however, needs a bit of nuance. Not every product gets its verdict on day one – no one reviews a fridge after plugging it in for five minutes. Timing matters. Some things need to be lived with before feedback is meaningful. Others, like a ride-hailing app or a next-day delivery, invite almost instant feedback. Just as a focus group requires great facilitation, the best brands know when – and how – to ask for feedback rather than treating all touchpoints as equal.

Co-creation as community building

Some of the most effective pro-sumer strategies go beyond product advocacy. They transform audiences into communities – a critical differentiator in a crowded market – and inform product development

Brands, such as LEGO Ideas, invite fans to submit their own concepts for new sets. The community decides; winning ideas make it to the shelf, driving a true sense of shared ownership.

The products that end up launching with ready-made advocates, while the brand has customers who spend more because they helped create the idea in the first place.

Beyond vanity metrics

Clicks, likes and views may look good on a dashboard and for internal reporting, but they rarely tell you what customers actually want.

Pro-sumer strategies go deeper, enabling two-way feedback loops that directly inform and improve the product.

Airbnb demonstrates this well, with hosts shaping guest experiences by controlling how they present their listings, responding to feedback and adapting their services. Reviews not only influence bookings, but also feed into Airbnb’s platform, refining community standards and strengthening trust across their network. Customers feel like they can buy into the service being offered, and are more likely to return.

When done well, real-time personalisation is a serious driver of growth. Twilio data shows that 88% of consumers are more likely to purchase when engagements are personalised in real time, with 35% ‘significantly’ more likely to buy. The challenge is getting the balance right.

Poorly executed personalisation doesn’t just miss the mark, it can backfire. An intrusive or irrelevant recommendation is often worse than none, and in the pro-sumer age, trust is a valuable currency that’s costly to lose.

Scaling personalisation with data

One of the most powerful aspects of the pro-sumer trend is its intersection with data-driven personalisation. Brands like Netflix and Spotify have set the gold standard here, blending behavioural insights to deliver deeply tailored experiences while letting users fine-tune recommendations through ratings, skips and curated playlists.

For most companies, building that level of personalisation from scratch is unrealistic. Many already have valuable data in place, but struggle to organise and interpret it effectively.

Customer data platforms can help by structuring and making customer preferences more portable. These tools make it possible to deliver more tailored experiences, from personalised marketing messages to dynamic in-app interactions, that encourage customers to engage more actively with a brand.

Powering the pro-sumer future

The pro-sumer shift marks an evolution in the customer-brand relationship. The most successful organisations will be those that turn participation into real influence – not token gestures, but meaningful opportunities to shape the product, service, or community.

They will also use data ethically and intelligently – not just to personalise, but to empower – while rewarding contribution as well as consumption, building loyalty through belonging rather than discounts.

For now, pro-sumer engagement is still the exception rather than the norm. That’s exactly why it offers a competitive edge.

The brands that embrace this shift won’t just gain customers – they’ll gain co-creators, fuelling innovation, accelerating growth and building communities their competitors can’t easily copy. After all, it is easy to leave a product behind, it’s much harder to leave your community.