“The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation.” – Bob Iger
Having a background in design, I have had an outlook in the visual sector of the media industry. I have always read about the growing field of design, pondered on the product design innovations and concentrated a lot on design thinking. I was another blinded designer who believed that design is what sells. I soon realized that what one finds even more irritating than a designer’s arrogance is his unapologetic demeanor – his belief that he is enriching your life with his intelligent input on design and his design is the only thing that is giving the brand its recognition. But the more I dwelled on this, it hit me that though design is important it is nothing without media. Design and media planning are intertwined together. The only reason the consumers get to see the visual is because media planners take the time to make it ‘seen’. An amateur designer is in his own way his little media planner. So designers, if you’ve ever shared your work on social media or showcased your portfolio on Behance, well you have been your media planner yourself. The appreciation and engagement your brand gets depends a lot on the how and where.
Social media success stories have become widely shared narratives, highlighting the impact social media can have on companies’ fortunes. This is reflected in reports of increased spending on social media initiatives and the establishment by some organizations of dedicated social media functions. Consultants and academics alike have been touting social media as a resource for innovation and new product development — a vehicle for developing customer insights, accessing knowledge, co-creating ideas & concepts with users, and supporting new product launches. Despite this, there is a significant opportunity that isn’t being tapped: using social media to support innovation, new product development to enhance the experience.
Last year I had the opportunity to attend the Adobe Symposium 2017 held in Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. In the 5 hours that I spent at the event, Adobe (the company that created Photoshop and a bunch of other incredible software) transformed my outlook toward the design and media industry. How? By talking to me about what it means to run a business today and how media design is such an inextricable part of it.
Make experience your business!
Four powerful words with a message quite simple. Today, we aren’t going to brands solely for the product or service – we’re going for the experience. There was a time we would shop only on the terms laid down by businesses. If stores were shut, we were forced to come back later. If products were out of stock, we wouldn’t know unless we physically went to the store and checked. We had to plan every single purchase due to this uncertainty. This experience proved quite troublesome until the day online shopping swept us off our feet. The convenience of having a product delivered to our doorsteps with the much-needed benefit of exchange upon dissatisfaction is why we fell in love with click and mortar. The consumer-business dynamic underwent a paradigm shift in design and advertising (media planning), guiding it through every step of the way. How? By constantly allowing for innovation in products and services and the introduction of new platforms. A brand’s recall value is not set by the billboard ad a user saw 3 days ago, but by the experience, a consumer has had with it.
Take the success of Uber for example. Essentially a cab service, but with a remarkable understanding of user requirements. Barring price, what is the key differentiator between the services of Uber and that of any regular Cool Cab in the city? The beauty of the former’s overall UX. At the click of a button, an Uber can be made ready for me at my doorstep – I don’t have to walk to the stand or make a phone call. Since the Uber driver already knows my drop location, I can sit back and focus on other things during the ride. I don’t have to worry about asking locals for directions because the fastest route has already been detected and displayed to me. If I’m traveling in a new city, I can share my exact location with someone ensuring that I am being watched every step of the way. And lastly, it’s up to me to decide how to pay the driver at the end of the ride. If I took price out of the equation and offered both services to you, wouldn’t you prefer the Uber? Yes, because even though both services help achieve the same goal, the experience with Uber is far better, proving that whether we know it or not, we are all in a quest for great experiences.
Your smartphone serves as a brilliant example of this phenomenon. We don’t choose a smartphone based on its ability to make phone calls or send text messages anymore. We choose it for its interface, speed, memory, color, finish, grip, camera, music quality and way more – we choose it for how smart it is. If we only cared about telephonic communication, we’d all be walking around with basic Nokia handsets. It’s fascinating to see this drastic shift in consumer behavior and the resultant change in the way we react to businesses. Thus, companies are not just in the business of products and services, they are in the business of experiences.
Adobe, a design veteran, has developed unique tools that help analyze and track consumer reactions. Businesses can use these tools to generate better content, offer better services and thereby, create better experiences. The funny thing is, no business has perfected its experience. Why? Because the perfect experience doesn’t exist. There is always room to do better because consumer difficulties are endless. While some may call this a vicious cycle, we media professionals and designers choose to look at it as an opportunity to grow, learn and make the world a better place, one experience at a time.
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