Design Thinking + Doing

Crispin Porter + Bogusky (known for making brands famous) makes a bold statement for design and advertising in this month’s creativity mag. The article helps expand the stereotypical definition of ‘design’ with insight from John Winsor and Alex Bogusky.

‘Here’s the old approach,’ says Bogusky. ‘As an agency you’re given a product, then you come up with your consumer research and figure out what’s going on around the product. Then you figure out how to position the product or lie about the product so it seems to answer all the issues around it.’

A better way, he says is ‘to take the cultural insights and move them to the beginning of the process. Your cultural and consumer research instructs the product. So it creates something you don’t have to lie about. The product not only fulfills a need, but it fulfills it in a way that is very apparent to the consumer…

Below are some inspired thoughts from the article and thinking.

1. The web breeds accountability.
Marketing fluff and ‘lies’ are debunked and uncovered when consumer needs are unmet (especially on the web!). Which should bring rise to agencies or departments that understand consumer needs and develop products and services around those needs. They can not lie about the junk they have. Successful products (or services) of the future will have marketing Baked-In to their design.

2. Move beyond industrial design.
Although the article focuses around industrial design, the premise of cultural or consumer insight applies broader. Industrial design has done an excellent job defining a user-centered practice that meets consumer needs. And because the end-result is a tangible product its much easier to grasp (literally). Brands and businesses need to understand that a ‘product’ can be a service, a functional web site, or an operational change. And that the cultural and consumer insight should inform all those decisions.

3. A new breed of ‘advertising’ and design agency.
The modern ‘ad agency’ is being re-defined and its great to see CP+B use their voice to move things forward. The future of advertising is a topic all on its own, and its very possible that ‘advertising’ isn’t the right word for the shift we’re seeing. But if it is, the ‘advertising’ of the future will be way different that what it has been. A definition that will include more integrated and collaborative relationships that use deeper cultural and consumer insights to uncover problems and develop solutions.

Below are a couple companies and organizations that I believe are at the forefront of this shift. I’m a little biased towards the first one.
Two West - Discovery + Design
Zeus Jones - Marketing as a Service
Ideo - Impact through Design (Design Thinking)
Anomaly
Centre for Design Innovation - Design research and promotion in Ireland