Establishing a perfect link between technology-driven innovation and user needs exploration has long been a controversial issue. This is particularly true and important in the era that technology development itself can no longer guarantee the creation of new markets. How to determine the potential of a new technology for which no market yet exists, therefore, becomes a vital but challenging task. The current study put its emphasis on designing a user-centric approach for product innovation based on lead user method, and on examining whether such an approach is helpful in maximising the success rate of technology innovation as well as the potential for market launch. A pilot project of designing mobile and internet products and applications derived by the proposed approach was conducted to scrutinise the feasibility and plausibility of this approach. The role of brainstorming in the marketing of technology-driven innovation is especially reconsidered and highlighted. Findings and suggestions are provided at the end of this article.Keywords: technology-driven innovation; lead user; brainstorming; marketing; methodology. He is interested in analysing and designing technology-enabled innovative services and the corresponding service systems, diagnosing and planning for new business information systems, and benchmark studies. He is recently in charge of research projects relevant to service science, management and engineering (SSME) and technology-enabled service innovations. Reconsidering the role of brainstorming