Advertising as part of holistic experience design
by petermeOne of the biggest issues I (and many folks I know) have with advertising is that it is so disconnected from the actual experience of using the product or service. It’s either putting lipstick on a pig, or it tries to suggest modes of use that just don’t make any sense.
Recently, I was speaking to someone who once worked as an account planner for ad agency Wieden and Kennedy, and who saw my talk at d.construct on The Experience is the Product. (Slidecast) The talk begins with a discussion of the original Kodak camera, and it’s famous tag line, “You press the button, we do the rest.”
What he identified as the genius of that tag line, which was prominently used in the advertising, is that it introduced people to the experience of using the camera. It primed people to accept and appreciate a product innovation, and so it served kind of as the very first instruction for people engaging in the experience.
That made me think about the genius of iPhone’s advertising, particularly before launch. All it features is someone using the phone. But through their carpet-bombing advertising, by the phone came out, everyone knew how to use it, particularly the strange new interaction models around multitouch, shifting the phone’s orientation, and the like. That advertising was an important first step to engaging with the experience of using an iPhone.
It’s common for experience designers to dismiss advertising as meaningless marketing, or bait-and-switching, but when utilized well, it successfully extends people’s experience with it.
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on Thursday, March 6th, 2008 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Experience design, media.
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March 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I have to agree that Apple have stripped back their advertising bs and replaced it with the simple message of using the product and the joys associated with doing so, but does it really work? We have become so accustomed to bells and whistles advertising that in my opinion that adverts come across slightly dull. Just my two cents.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:40 pm
hello Peter,
I hadn’t spotted this. Honoured to be mentioned here. And many thanks for your comment on my post. I suspect the integration of advertising into experience design will happen one day. But a lot of organisational models will have to change, and a lot of prejudices will have to be overcome first.