D e v e lo p m e n t

This article is about being of two minds. Managers not only have to discern the differences in these perspectives, but also articulate project goals in terms appreciated by either stakeholder.

Michael B. Beverland, Professor of Marketing, School of Management, University of Bath, UK

Francis J. Farrelly, Professor of Marketing, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia

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Designers and Marketers: Toward a Shared Understanding

by Michael B. Beverland and Francis J. Farrelly

In the course of our long-term research project examining design-led businesses, we regularly come across stereotypes of designers and marketers. According to designers, marketers generate incremental innovations because they lack imagination, while marketers believe designers are little more than egotistical dreamers focusing on winning design awards rather than on developing products that

meet customers needs. Each discipline reinforces these stereotypes with myths of design-driven successes (for instance, Apple doesnt do market research) or designer-centric flops (for instance, Dysons Contrarotator Washer was too expensive, lacked obvious functional advantages, and was ugly to boot). Its hardly surprising then that research characterizes the relationship between designers and

marketers as less than ideal.1 These stereotypes contain an element of truthmarketers do focus on the espoused needs of customers, while designers often put aside those
1. See, for example, Michael B. Beverland, Managing the Design Innovation-Brand Marketing Interface: Resolving the Tension Between Artistic Creation and Commercial Imperatives, Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 22 (2005), pp. 193-207; and Dan Zhang, Peng Hu, and Masaaki Kotabe, Marketing-Industrial Design Integration in New Product Development: The Case of China, Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 28 (2011), pp. 360-373.

2011 The Design Management Institute

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concerns to generate innovations. Moreover, neither approach is wrong. If a product does not address issues of market relevance, it will fail as surely as one that lacks a significant point of difference driven by a creative leap of faith. Accordingly, research suggests that market-driven new product development (NPD) benefits from cross-functional integration. The problem is that policies that favor such integration (through formal meetings between designers and marketing, for example, or through skunk works and multi-functional teams) have at best under-delivered.2 We believe the secret to integration between marketing and design is largely cultural. Based on interviews with designers and marketers, we identify the cultural basis underpinning how each function frames NPD problems and how this leads to shared understanding and improved innovations. In her seminal article on new product teams, Deborah Dougherty attributes interfunctional conflict to different thought worlds3the cognitive lenses through which individuals frame problems. Although designers and marketers use similar language (such as customer relevance
2. Deborah Dougherty, Interpretive Barriers to Successful Product Innovation in Large Firms, Organization Science, vol. 3, no. 2 (1992), pp. 179-202. 3. Ibid., p. 179.

and competitive differentiation) and share a desire to achieve successful NPD, the meaning of such terms and the means to achieve this goal are driven by different cultural assumptions. As a result, designers and marketers experience frustration when working together and often achieve poor results. Critically, Dougherty notes that both thought worlds are necessary for the development of a successful new product, though she does not examine how designers and marketers might overcome their respective mental frames and build shared understanding. That is our purpose here.
Shape vs. fit: How designers and marketers frame innovation problems

Our research with designers and marketers identified two different approaches to the problem of NPD. Designers primarily focused on shaping their worldidentifying the importance of leading customers as central to competitive differentiation and good design. In contrast, marketers approached the same issue seeing a good product as one that fits the times. The following two quotes reflect these differences: Designer: What is the simplest way to appropriate a market? We

think it is to create it. So we think in terms of creating a new category first of all, rather than going to the market and saying, Ooh, what looks good out there, lets try and create something thats similar to that but somehow better or different. Marketer: It is a critical challenge that demands you understand what the consumer is thinking. So you go to the market to get a sense of what people really understand about the environment in a product or service sense, as well as whats wrong with existing products. We might use this research to gain an understanding of how our brand is tracking against the competition in terms of important issues such as quality and reputation, and we look at what they think about what our competitors do, too, on these credentials. The two quotes are exemplars that reflect the difference in mental frames between marketers and designers (from the same firm) approaching the shared goal of NPD. The design teams answer to the NPD challenge is to shape reality through creating new markets and product categories. In contrast, the marketing director identifies a different path to the same goal, focusing on working within the current rules of the market and, through the process of

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brand tracking, measuring fit. Clearly neither the designer nor the marketer is wrong, but the two approaches reflect different worldviews. In classifying the frames of designers and marketers, we drew on Edgar Scheins seminal research on the assumptions underpinning group culture to identify why each discipline adopts a different thought world (see Figure 1).4 Four assumptions underpin each frame: relationship to the environment; assumptions about change; knowledge and truth; and the nature of time. Relationship to the environment We noticed fundamental differences in how designers and marketers view
4. Schein, Edgar H. (1991), What Is Culture? in Peter J. Frost, Larry F. Moore, Meryl Reis Louis, Craig C. Lundberg and Joanne Martin (eds.), Reframing Organizational Culture, (Newbury Park, CA: Sage), pp. 243-253.

the business environment. For designers, the environment is viewed as mutable, and therefore new products should focus on shaping the market to the firms end. In contrast, marketers view the environment as relatively immutable, and therefore NPD should create harmony between the firm and the market. Such differences often result in conflict between the two functions. For example, an electronics designer we interviewed noted that design ideas were consistently diluted when marketers subjected them to consumer testing. Notably, her objection had nothing to do with disinterest in customer needs; rather, she believed customers sought comfort in the familiar, resulting in me-too designs that had little chance of success. In contrast, many marketers we
marketing
Fit

Function
Core metaphor Assumption underpinning frame the environment is

Design
Shape

spoke to identify day-to-day concerns, such as meeting sales targets and dealing with retailers, as shapers of their NPD agenda. For example, a marketer of home appliances stressed the need to stay within the narrow confines of product categories when talking to customers about innovations (as he stated: Dont forgetyoure talking about a washing machine). This belief was justified in terms of tracking research that found consumers primarily saw the product category in terms of functionality. Even when marketers engaged in long-term product planning (which one expects would challenge conventions), they often noted that their approach to innovation remained based in assumptions of fit. As one fashion marketer stated, We quickly get into discussions about where [Brand A] fits in, where [Brand B] fits in, and where [Brand C] and [Brand D] fit in. Assumptions about change

Mutable Radical

Fixed Incremental Irregular Problematic Measurable Past guides present

Change is

Constant An opportunity

Knowledge is time orientation

Intuited Future guides present

Figure 1. The Assumptions underpinning the frames of designers and marketers.

We noticed that marketers and designers viewed change in different ways. For designers, change was constant, represented an opportunity to be exploited, and required radical solutions. Marketers viewed change as a threat to be managed, saw it as relatively irregular, and as a result preferred to focus on incremental

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innovations. As one fashion marketer stated: Marketing wants sales now, and in a sense just wants design to do as instructed to make the product that will most likely get those sales, and that can mean sticking to what we think the consumer is saying now or what they have said in the past, in the belief that this is a safer bet. One designer, employed to refresh the Census brand in Australia (the product contains data from the census of the Australian population performed every five years) in light of the shift to digitalization, noted how new ideas were killed off in early stages of the product development process. The actual merits of the designers ideas are not at issue here what is instructive is the belief that the opportunity presented by digitalization requires a radical response, and such a solution struggles because marketers prefer the comfort of the familiar. Thus, this designer draws on notions of shape to frame the new product problem and to explain why the ideas failed to gain support from marketing. Knowledge and truth The third assumption underpinning each functions frame relates to what truth is and how it is determined in the market. For designers, knowl-

edge is intuited from observation, experience, and beliefs; for marketers, knowledge is measurable and generated from consumer insight and competitive analysis. Such differences often give rise to interfunctional conflict. For designers, market data is by definition dated, especially in light of differences in time orientation (see below), and reflects the wrong-headed belief that customers can articulate their desires. Designers we interviewed often described their approach in terms of the art of the possible and finding clarity in chaos. Marketers often struggled to understand the logic behind designers insights, believing many of their ideas were too risky because they conflicted with notions of fit. One CMO stereotyped designers as primarily interested in art for arts sake, and stated that too often designers justified their choices with the argument Im the designer. For this CMO, NPD was a process of compromise whereby original ideas were adjusted in light of fit considerations, such as customer feedback, retailer input, and other commercial considerations. Such a view explains why many marketers focus on writing new product briefs that allow little room for designerdriven deviation.

The nature of time Assumptions regarding time concern the ways in which organizations are oriented to the past, present, and future. Consistent with the earlier section in which we discuss their relationship to the environment, designers time orientation tend toward the future, whereas marketers tend to be more focused on the present. Accordingly, designers often use future scenarios to inform the present, whereas marketers make projections either based on the past or in response to the more immediate circumstances in which they find themselves. For example, one designer we interviewed was scathing in his criticism of Ford and General Motors for not having hybrid cars. Putting aside the merits of these firms practices, what is instructive here is the designers assumptions about time. He noted that China had plans to require all automotive firms to have hybrids as a condition of market access. This designer works backward from the future and arrives at the view that Fords and GMs approach represented a failure to understand the fundamentals of the market. By way of contrast, the majority of marketers focused hard on understanding the now. As one furniture marketer noted, Marketing operates

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primarily within the bounds of existing market realities and pressures, such as what happens week-to-week and last quarter, what the consumer is buying, what the consumer research tells us, what the competitor is doing, what products, segments, and geographic areas they are focusing on, and whats going on in retail. That absorbs your thinking and energy, and rightly so. In this case, marketers see new product decisions largely in terms of past behavior, resulting in a preference for more incremental innovation even when (as recognized by our marketer) breakthrough innovation is required.
Building shared understanding of the npD problem

relationship in more positive terms (notwithstanding the tensions weve identified). For example, the following quote comes from an office furniture designer who expressed frustration when dealing with marketing over the issue of renewable resources. Sonja: Well, it was always for the worse! Im a bit of an environmentalist, so I was always looking for that side of it where I was using renewable resources. But I found marketing always looking at the cost. They never considered using renewable resources as a marketing toolits a green

product, made of renewable resources, everything in it is recyclablethey just would not do it. I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall a lot of the time. Although many readers may share Sonjas sense of frustration, we propose that much of the blame lies in her inability to break out of her own frame and empathize with marketing. Figure 2 identifies a three-step process with which marketers and designers can achieve better working relationships and, as a result, improved new product outcomes. The first step

Much of the content so far will be unsurprising to both marketers and designers, largely because it reinforces commonly held stereotypes. In the early stages of our research, we wondered whether there was something inherent in our understanding of customer orientation that impeded breakthrough design-driven innovation. However, the more we reflected on our data, the more we noticed a difference between individuals who expressed constant frustration with the other discipline, and those who characterized their working

Figure 2. Building shared understanding requires empathizing with other frames, recognizing your own frame is a problem, and deploying creative discourse strategies that build mutual trust.

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involves recognizing and empathizing with the others frame. Step two involves recognizing the limitations of your own frame and the resulting need to break out of these mental barriers. Step three involves deploying cultural intelligence through careful impression management in order to provide the basis for other functions to buy into your vision on their own terms. While Sonjas focus on renewable resources in admirable, it also brings her into direct conflict with the marketing team struggling to achieve fit. Despite her stress on renewable resources as a marketing tool, Sonja fails to understand that marketers focus on balancing functional product features with other aspects of the marketing mix, such as price, customer needs, and the brands position. In essence, Sonja reinforces marketers stereotypical views of designers as impractical idealists. Unfortunately, her inability to frame the use of sustainability in such a way that marketers could accept did in fact lead to the launch of a me-too product that failed to gain market share. Another company tried out the approach we identify in Figure 2 and found it useful. The designer at this company played a key role in the design of the Ford Ka. This automobile was targeted at Generation Y,

Selling it to marketing: Design mobels pause Bedding System

he design team at New Zealand based Design Mobel (a recognized leader in sustainable design) used the principles identified in this article to meet one of their biggest challengesmarketings demand to respond to calls from retailers for more traditional furniture. Design Mobel is renowned for sleek, simple designs that reflect its design teams passion for modernity and environmental simplicity. Since the design team had little motivation for producing either the Colonial-era furniture offered by many low-cost producers or replicas of European masters, they decided to research the idea of tradition in the context of furniture. Engaging in a typical design-research approach of looking beyond consumer data (which associated traditional with certain time periods of ostentatious decoration), the design team realized that the vast majority of historical furniture was highly functional rather than the decorative pieces so often seen in museums and history books. This beautiful, functional furniture was largely forgotten because Australian and New Zealand history focused on European royalty or colonial life, rather than on seemingly more mundane, functional objects. Realizing that in desiring tradition, consumers would respond to durable, elegant, highquality, and hand-crafted items, the design team repackaged this design ideal within a story based around consumers desire for authenticity and the ability of Design Mobel to respond to that desire, given their commitment to craft production and high-quality material selection. The marketing team was receptive to this story, because it was sold in terms of emerging consumer trends and brand heritage. The resulting product was the Pause bedding system (see photo at left)a strong seller since its launch in 2007. n

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Designers and m arketers: toward a Shared Understanding

Selling it to marketing: Design methvens tahi Shower System

ew Zealand firm Methven has a long heritage of engineering and design innovation in tap ware. As part of the firms broader shift from an engineering-driven style to one more driven by brand and design, new product development processes moved from market-driven to marketdriving. One example of this is the firms very successful and award-winning shower concept, Tahi (Maori for one). Although Methvens design and marketing teams work closely together on all new product ideas, both recognize that frame-driven conflict exists. With Tahi, for example, the design team (which often works in isolation) wished to provide a luxurious integrated shower system that was also functional and sustainable (through lower water use). The marketing team, however, tended to lean toward the need for fittheir concern was whether the product would be easy to clean, whether it would sell given its price point, and whether it might challenge peoples perceptions about what they saw as a functional product category. To overcome this conflict, the design team repositioned the whole system in terms of a brand language, noting that all the great brand-driven firms have a design aesthetic, and that Tahi reflected that fact (a statement backed up by market research, which identified the validity of concept and the fact it was seen as both different from competing concepts and reflective of the Methven brand). For their part, marketing replaced voiceof-the-customer analysis with ethnography (yes, the designers spent a significant amount of time watching people shower!) to ensure that their vision was customer-relevant. The Tahi product (see photo at right) has garnered rave reviews, won a prestigious Red Dot Award, and been a strong seller in key global markets. n

many of whom were put off by Fords traditional functional offering. Given Fords preference for modular production as a means of reducing risk, the design team knew they would face an uphill struggle in gaining sign-off for a radically new car. Rather than offer a compromise solution, the design team employed our methodology. The first step involved empathizing with the marketing teams worldview. Knowing that any design solution would be viewed from the perspective of fit, the designers conducted their own lifestyle research on the Gen Y segment. Through the use of trend research, as well as observations of the target consumers world (which largely involved analyzing how non-automotive companies such as Nike effectively targeted these consumers), the design team generated a series of personas (such as Techno Head and Sports Chic) that reflected different Generation Y lifestyle segments. Since personas are largely used by designers to guide their creative thinking, the design team developed story boards that identified their lifestyle and their preferences in terms of brands, materials, products, and cues, and related each directly to an automotive context. Make no mistakethe head designer for this company recognized the same marketing stereotypes as

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Sonja. But unlike Sonja, she was able to recognize the stereotype as her own problem and actually use it in a positive wayby focusing on stepping out of her own worldview and packaging the message in a form that marketers would instinctively recognize. By developing a series of storyboards that connected the lifestyle of the target market to the product category, the design team in effect repackaged a shape-driven approach (personas) in terms of fit (segments). Marketers, too, can adopt this strategy by recognizing the limits of their approach to NPD and seek to reframe ideas in ways that encourage shared understanding. For example, marketers at one large, fast-moving consumer goods firm took segmentation data and turned them into personas. Knowing that designers viewed segmentation studies as inauthentic, the marketing team instead repackaged their target segment as Caroline. They could then use this device to discuss product ideas with the design team, asking critical questions such as Are we still thinking about Caroline? Okay, lets imagine that shes in the room right now. What would she be thinking when we come to her with this idea? Are we describing it well enough so that she can understand what we want to bring to the table?

Such an approach enables each discipline to build a shared understanding of the new product problem; designers can use the metaphor of Caroline to frame innovative lifestyle solutions, while marketers can talk to designers without sacrificing their own desire for market share.
Conclusion

In our interviews, we found that many designers took issue with the phrase design-led. For them, this term too easily gave rise to a sense that successful innovations were designer-led, rather than the result of a team effort involving (among others) marketers, researchers, designers,

engineers, salespeople, and finance employees. As a result, the term design orientation was preferred, implying that design was seen as one function among many that contribute to the long-term success of the organization. We believe that such a stance reflects a deeper understanding of design managementone that requires designers to, when necessary, step outside their own worldview and view innovation problems from anothers viewpoint. Paradoxically, in doing so, designers are more likely to package their ideas in ways that encourage shared understanding and, as a result, generate design-inspired innovations. n
Reprint #11223BEV62

by Will Ayres & Scott Lerman

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