PSFK Author:
Piers Fawkes

Over on his site, Russell Davies has started to list some thoughts about design, marketing and service. He promises a series of thought-provoking posts and the one he has up there already is worth a good read. In it he says:

These are the bits of the average large organisation that we creative industries folks encounter: Three silos, doing design or content-type stuff, marketing-type stuff and some sorts of aftersales. And no silo ever talks to any other because the process almost always proceeds steadily from left to right.

…However, it should be noted that people actually experience the product in a different order. People’s experiences of most big-time consumer products starts with the communications / marketing / whatever you want to call it. The experience starts with the thing that gets built second. This, I suspect, is why we’re not seeing more people actively doing something like pre-experience design. It’s not because integrating marketing and design thinking isn’t a good idea, it’s because it’s organisationally / politically impossible.

This may not have been a problem in the past, but as more and more products ‘informationalise’ it’s going to become more of an issue.

Russell Davies on Design Engaged

Just in time for the Olympic Games in China, Louis Vuitton have created audio guides in six languages for three Chinese cities – Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai. MTrends explains:

Ideally for people travelling to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, each hour-long soundwalk features a story whose narration perfectly synchronizes with the itinerary - the voice of the narrator geographically guides the physical visitor in real time through an area of a city or a district - accompanied by the signature sounds of the city.

Original soundtracks composed by Kubert Leung and Albert Yu. Shan Sa (”The Girl Who Played Go”) and Mei Feng (up-and-coming young Chinese author), have written these journeys much like film scripts —- subtly blending reality and fiction to offer a cinematic experience in the heart of the city.

Soundwalk
M-Trends Review

At the recent Fuel conference, Alex Hunter, Virgin America’s Head of Group Online Marketing, presented the new airline’s experience with working in social media to help launch the service:

The issued a time lapse video of the planes being painted
They launched a blog about the technology available to passengers
They ran a competition to let people name 8 planes
They got the community to spread their content and Digg it

TwoPoint touch has more details on their site.

NYC based Audiobrain is a sonic branding and interactive audio company who are sourcing music and sound clips to enhance the 2008 Summer Olympics. NBC and Audiobrain are in the process of collecting over 30,000 tracks to add tension, enhance the mood or create drama for all 3,600 hours of Olympic programming.

To ensure that they always have the perfect mood-enhancing track ready to go, NBC is digitizing Audiobrain’s collection of pop songs, classic-film scores, and original compositions and storing them in a sophisticated database that enables them to find the perfect track on the fly.

Fast Company reports:

When NBC’s producers prepare a segment, they use the database to zero in on the exact tone they’re looking to set. Producers can search by artist, album, instrumentation, mood, decade, and culture of origin, so when recapping a Norwegian’s javelin victory subsequently overturned by a rules violation, they can utilize key words such as “rousing,” “Scandinavian,” and “moody” to hone their choices. NBC’s editors can tag clips and leave one another tips and suggestions, see when a track last aired, and — if time is running short — even press a button requesting help from Arbeeny or Audiobrain cofounder and creative director Michael Sweet, who will be working alternating 12- to 18-hour shifts from NBC’s Beijing headquarters.

Fast Company: “Audiobrain Meets NBC: Creating Music for the Beijing Olympics”

McDonald’s Chicago-based advertising agency Leo Burnett has installed a growing billboard promoting the fast-food giants venture into fresh salad meals. Having just won Gold at New York Festivals’ Innovative Advertising Awards, the billboard was carefully constructed with a horticulturalist/landscape architect, allowing the lettuce buds to bloom over time, gradually filling up the sign with beautiful, edible leaves.

[via trendhunter]

John Dodds spots this bit of fun on the receipt for the White Cube art gallery in London. John says:

Pricing is difficult. White Cube demonstrates the importance of identifying with your customer while relieving them of large sums of money.

Make Marketing History: How Much?

Top product design blog The Die Line has a copy of a presentation that Marcus Hewitt, CCO of Dragon Rouge USA, gave at the HOW Design Conference. Hewitt says that branding really is like dating - it requires a work, truth, self-confidence, and growth.

TheDieline.com: The Leading Package Design Blog: Branding is Like Dating

We have already pointed to a Smart Car vending machine game on IF! - now CScout shows us this vending machine in Shibuya Station that contains a full-size Smart Car which it suggests you can buy for about $20k. If you press the button you get a branded tube that contains pamphlets on the new models, dealer information, and a sheet of Smart Car stickers.

Trends in Japan » Smart Vendor car vending machine in Shibuya

Central Saint Martins is using Flickr to great effect as it demonstrates the concepts developed by BA (Hons) Product Design students in their final show. Briefs seem to have asked for ideas for Ariel soap, Vertu phones and childcare.

CSM on Flickr