The Designful Company
The following passage is excerpted from Marty Neumeier’s latest book, The Designful Company: How to build a culture of nonstop innovation.
Imagine a crazy world where what you learned in business school is either upside down or backwards—where customers control the company, jobs are avenues of self-expression, the barriers to competition are out of your control, strangers design your products, fewer features are better, advertising drives customers away, demographics are beside the point, whatever you sell you take back, best practices are obsolete at birth; where meaning talks, money walks, and stability is fantasy; where talent trumps obedience, imagination beats knowledge, and empathy trounces logic.
If you’ve been paying close enough attention, you don’t have to imagine this Alice-in-Wonderland scenario. You see it forming all around you. The only question is whether you can change your business fast enough to take full advantage of it.
Marty Neumeier
“Even the Lone Ranger didn’t work alone.”
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I’m a little bit lost. How is advertising driving customers away? And further more, what are we selling that we’re taking back? Basically, I am not as smart as I would like to be and I don’t quite get this excerpt.
Do you ever get fed up with advertising, Marty? Have you thought there’s just too much of it? I have. As consumers we’ve been programmed to block out the flood, and to counter, advertisers continue to churn out more, more, more, in a vain attempt to breach our defense.
We turn to our friends, and to those we know, for product or service recommendations. Advertising doesn’t carry anywhere near the same level of trust.
The point about taking back what we sell—make yourself the customer for what you’re offering to clients. Would you be more than satisfied? What can you do to make the experience one you’d recommend to others?
Bear in mind that’s my interpretation of what Neumeier is talking about, but whether it’s on the money or not, I hope it’s helped explain my reason for quoting the excerpt.
It’s interesting that these points are covered in Design, it all comes back to successful business practice in the current world. I recently went to a business conference that covered the very issue of putting yourself in the customers shoes – would you be happy with the service you gave?
Apparently studies show that customers are not just disappointed with most service they get but outraged. (Ian Brooks)
Branding becomes so much more important going forward.
When it comes to advertising on TV I have taken to pressing mute when they come on, as I just can’t be bothered to listen to them these days, plus TV channels insist on increasing the volume when they come on. So they are now just annoying, repetitive and I simply don’t want to see them anymore.
Hi Clare, I’m not very familiar with Ian Brooks, but I visited his site and downloaded one his PDFs. Apparently, in British research, 92% said the way the staff member looked affected their perception of how good the customer experience was.
Ian, I’m like you with the volume. The mute button on my TV remote has been getting more use than ever this past year. When an annoyingly catchy ad jingle is played, I used to purposely “un-mute” the volume because I know my fiancee doesn’t want the tune stuck in her head.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say advertising pushes customers away, I just believe a good portion of companies/agencies are executing their campaigns in the wrong way, in our over-communicated world successful advertising campaigns need to be over simplified for maximum effect, not force a sale upon customers. Consumers are hit by thousands of ads a day and dont have the mental capacity to take on board all of the information put in front of them; especially those shrouded in jargon; or that’s my view on the topic.
Thanks for the heads up on this book David will be sticking it in my Amazon wishlist.
Does anyone even bother to watch TV ads any more?! I’ve been pausing the program for 4 minutes at the start then using that as fast forward buffer space for each ad break. TV Advertising is a joke, if your friends talked to you like TV ads you’d probably hit them. They are starting to really embrace social media/online interaction as they realise so many people are sitting watching TV with their laptop/smart phone on interacting with social websites.
A product or service reccomended to you by a friend is one million times more effective than being shouted at by traditional advertising media.
I’ve read many books related to business. I think Marty Neumeier expressed his ideas in a different way. I also heard about him from my friend – He used to say his books are mind blowing when you read at first. I was planning to get “The Brand Gap” but I think “The Designful Company” will be my first Marty Neumeir’s book. Thanks for your post David, I love it.
I reckon the wrong advertising can push people away, Liam, but I pay relatively little interest, consciously, so it would take something seriously wrong.
James, Donal, no worries at all. Cheers.
Ah, David, thank you for clarify that for me. Complicated things always seem so much simpler when someone lays them out right in front of your face. But then again, isn’t that a Designer’s job?
Marty
You’re very welcome, Marty. Happy to help.
I totally digress from the post content David, but I like the cover design ! Very elegant dont you think?
It is a nice cover, Lakshmi, and it’s from the same publisher as my own book. The ‘design’ text is embossed, which gave me the idea to do likewise—it’s good to see ‘design’ on the inside cover (no ink, just the embossing, and of course the word is in reverse, but still a good little touch I think).
Looks a great book, might make a good Xmas present.
I think this is going to be a valuable resource! I’m headed to the bookstore! ;)