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Selling the Story: The Design Process as a Marketing Tool

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 17:50

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(Before It's News)

Coming off the success of Apple’s use of VP of industrial design Jony Ive in it’s marketing campaigns, it’s no surprise that other companies have taken to adopt their designers as the spokesmen to sell their products. While James Dyson may be the godfather of modern day designer-turned TV spokesman, the increased use of designers in marketing mediums has been a welcoming refreshment in a world saturated with overly-hyped sponsored athletes and celebrity endorsements.

Designers as the New Celebrity Endorsers?

In the past, marketing involved traveling salesmen, celebrities slathering skin creams on their faces, or epic slam dunks over Godzilla… but recent research suggests that none of this helps sales. Enter today’s age of interactive television and social media and you either have a goldmine or a blood-curdling disaster for your brand image. It’s hard to argue that perhaps one of the best options for a company spokesman in today’s ease-of-access digital age would be the actual designer of said product. While Jony Ive has been known to be media-shy in the past, he has been growing more and more comfortable in that ‘big white room’ that has become Apple’s trademark promo video environment. Perhaps his confidence has been boosted by his knighthood, but regardless, consumers today are much smarter and want a level of transparency with the goods they buy to the levels of which society has never seen before. Enter the designer as the new celebrity endorser…

Communication and Transparency

How many people do you know who surfed Amazon’s customer reviews or similar before the last big purchase they made? This is the age we are living in, and smart companies are branding their products by showing off their ‘cool and hip’ designers in an effort to go ‘straight to the source’. In other words, they are edging you to bypass the consumer insights and take your opinions straight from the designer and/or the proof of thought shown in the recorded design process. Slick product animations are the future of design visualizations, and not only are they an effective communication tool from designer to designer, but also an extremely effective communication tool to the consumer.

Specialized S-Works Road Shoe

What do you think? As a designer or engineer are these methods of communication creating more interest in a purchasing decision? What about using this communication strategy as the new standard for your design presentations?

Design Process and Perspectives in Advertisements

You may remember seeing other advertisement featuring designers and the process delivered in a rich, visually stimulating fashion. Here are just a handful.

Dyson Vaccuums