Jaewoo teaches and writes about design thinking and behavioral economics for customer experience, new product development, and new product adoption. He is an associate professor of marketing and participating professor of experience design at Kookmin University.
Although a wide variety of design methods are used, two questions have been little investigated: whether using many methods improves the outcome quality and who benefits more from using them. We conducted a quasi-experiment in a classroom employing a 2 (Design Method: More vs. Fewer) x 2 (Style of Processing: Verbalizer vs. Visualizer) between-subjects design. We obtained two findings from the data. First, the students using more design methods generated better outcomes than those using fewer design method. Secondly, verbal-oriented students generated better outcomes than visual-oriented students. Our obtained two findings will be discussed in the context of design process.
Keywords
Design methods, design quality, style of processing, verbal, visual
Background: Empathy instruction (“please empathize with the person in the narrative”) is often provided when new product concepts are evaluated in a narrative form. However, concept evaluators tend to empathize with users differently; non-designers empathize with them insufficiently whereas designers do so sufficiently. Therefore, we expect that the effect of empathy instruction on concept evaluation will differ depending on the design expertise of individual evaluators. Empathy instruction will benefit non-designers whereas it may not benefit designers. We hypothesize that non-designers evaluate a concept more positively while designers evaluate the same concept more negatively when empathy instruction is provided than when it is not.
Methods: We conducted two studies with 74 practitioners (study 1) and 87 undergraduate students (study 2) by asking participants to evaluate a new service concept for long-distance communication. Half of the participants were provided with empathy instruction (“please watch a video clip about a long-distance couple”) and the other half were provided with control instruction (“please watch a video clip about nature). Then, we compared the concept evaluation scores between the two groups.
Results: The two studies showed that when the participants received control instruction, their concept evaluation scores between two groups did not differ. However, when they received empathy instruction, non-designers’ concept evaluation scores increased whereas designers’ concept evaluation scores decreased.
Conclusion: Our findings highlight the dark side of empathy in concept evaluation. When empathy instruction is provided for narrative concept evaluation, it needs to be used carefully depending on the individual concept evaluators. More discussions are needed for customized empathy.
Keywords
Concept evaluation, design expertise, empathy instructon, narrative concept, new product development
Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) scale (Aron et al., 1992)
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to test whether the priming of a brainstorming task by a persona increases ideational fluency and originality, i.e. the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of creative performance. We conducted a preliminary (n = 18) and final (n = 32) experiment with international students of business. These experiments revealed that priming of brainstorming by a persona increases originality of ideas by a large effect size (Cohen’s d = .91, p = .02), and not significantly ideational fluency by a medium effect size (Cohen’s d = .33, p = .39). As an alternative explanation to empathy, the found creativity effect may be attributed to priming that retrieves related memory items and thereby facilitates idea generation. As practical implications, design thinking practitioners can expect more original ideas and overcome design fixation if they brainstorm on a persona which is modelled in a concise and consistent way that caters to understanding the user need.
Heather Fraser published “Design works: how to tackle your toughest innovation challenges through business design” five years ago. It demonstrates how organizations can drive innovation and growth through Business Design – a discipline that integrates design-inspired methods and mindsets into business development and planning. Roger Martin said in his forward that “This book tells the story of the 3 Gears of Business Design, simply and practically. Its goal is to provide an easy-to-use guide for organizations that are eager to harness the power of Business Design.” The Korean version of the Design works is published in Korea.
Author: Heather M. F. Fraser / A seasoned business strategist, brand-marketing expert, and longtime entrepreneur and educator, Heather is a global thought leader in Business Design. Heather co-founded Rotman DesignWorks with Roger Martin in 2005 and served as Executive Director of DesignWorks through 2012. She has cultivated Business Design as a discipline, delivered student curriculum, and led innovation programs for over 3000 executives. She advises leading organizations on how to advance their business through innovation, including teams from Procter & Gamble, Nestle, Pfizer, General Electric, Target, and VF Corporation.
Translator: Jaewoo Joo / Jaewoo Joo is an Assistant Professor of Marketing in the College of Business Administration and a Participating Professor of Experience Design in the Graduate school of Techno Design, both at Kookmin University. He earned his Ph.D. in Marketing from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Jaewoo writes and teaches about Design Marketing and New Product Development (NPD) through the lens of the Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making (JDM).
Translator: Ran Yoon / Ran Yoon is a product planner and marketer at SK Telecom, the leading service carrier company in Korea, and collaborates with a wide variety of planners, developers, and designers. Previously, she worked as a planner and marketer at Samsung Electronics Canada.
Most cocktail glasses are designed to hold the unique aroma of the cocktail to maximize its taste. However, some glasses play different roles. While I visited Singapore, my friend recommended me to visit Loof, a rooftop bar. It is located across the famous Raffels Hotel, a colonial-style super luxury hotel in the downtown. According to the website, this bar is
Awarded as Singapore’s best rooftop bar, Loof serves up quality whimsy, fresh nostalgia and unbridled playfulness in an urban garden atop Odeon Towers in downtown CBD. Enjoy carefully crafted Southeast Asian inspired cocktails with bar snacks that have a local twist. Then take a trip down memory lane and purchase little gems of locally-curated nostalgia at The Mama Shop. Bask in the cool shade of Loof’s urban garden and take in the best view of Raffles Hotel. Soak up infectious beats from resident DJs and themed party nights.
I wanted to drink energy booster since I spent a hot and humid daytime outside. I ordered “Milo Cocktail” because Milo is the chocolate malt beverage. Interestingly, this cocktail was served by a milk carton shaped glass. Although this glass did not capture the unique aroma the cocktail, it certainly improved my drinking experience because Milo is often served with milk and thus it tasted like Milo milky cocktail.
Stephen Hoch and Young-Won Ha proposed in their seminal marketing paper, Consumer Learning: Advertising and the Ambiguity of Product Experience (1986) that experience is a piece of evidence to test a hypothesis and the hypothesis is the advertising message. This cocktail glass led me to think that product design or package can be a hypothesis now. I thought milk was in there! 🙂
In a recent commercial of KitKat, a female flight attendant fails to call the last passenger to the gate, eats a piece of Kitkat, then raps and beat boxes at the mic, and then finds the lost passenger. Unfortunately, we were confused about it because rapping has nothing to do with the passenger, and we were irritated about her relatively poor rapping skill. We believe these obstacles fail to deliver the brand’s advantages to viewers.
However, we found that women were more likely to consume chocolates than men, in particular, when they were depressed or agitated. There is even a special Swiss chocolate called “Frauenmond” that makes menstrual pain goes away. Judging by these facts, our new commercial targets at 20 – 30s women who feel unhappy for no specific reason and positions Kitkat as a medicine for emotional problem of women. We embed this concept into a story about a man who is confused about his girlfriend’s suddenly aggressive behavior. He runs to a nearby pharmacy, looks for a medicine for his lover. The pharmacist hands over Kitkat as a solution. When the girlfriend eats Kitkat, she becomes happy and cheerful as usual.
Uniqlo is one of the leading “fast-fashion” or SPA (specialty retailer of private label apparel) brands. It sells comfortable and affordable life-wear clothes. In April 2016, Uniqlo launched its sports brand called Uniqlo sports and aired the commercial of “Why are you wearing clothes?” As for the target, it appeales to the people who prefer wearing comfortable clothes. As for the message, it emphasizes that Uniqlo is not only for comfort but also for lifestyle and style. Although this commercial is not hated by many people, the scope of its target audience is too broad and the message is not clear. Therefore, we address these two issues in our new commercial.
Note that, different from the better established sports brands such as Nike or Adidas, people have virtually no idea about Uniqlo sports. This is because they have insufficient information about the innovative functionality of Uniqlo sports. Therefore, we aim to get people informed about Uniqlo sports in the new commercial.
Our proposed new message is sports-wear in daily life. We change the target audience to the age of 10s to 20s who like to play sports. Our sub-target is a group of people between 30s and 40s who like outdoor activities and enjoy wearing comfortable clothes. In our new commercial, we compared between two students; one wears daily clothes and the other one wears Uniqlo sports. When they both receive at the same time the identical message saying “Let’s play basketball,” the person who wore daily clothes goes back home, changes his uncomfortable clothes, and then comes back to the basketball stadium. However, the other person who wore Uniqlo sports did not have to make travel. We emphasize in the new commercial that if they go with Uniqlo sports, they can exercise whenever they want without changing to other sports wear.
About 6,700 cheese boards and cutting boards sell on the Amazon.com. Their prices vary between $5 and $370. Majority of them are rectanglular. However, not a few boards interesting shapes. At one of my favorite Canadian stores, West elm, I found a cow-shaped mini cheese board and cutting board. Its price was $22.
I bought this board mainly because it looked interesting to me. However, a board designer cut a significant portion of it to make it look like a cow, it was not useful to cut vegetables and fruits but ok for serving cheese. This is a typical situation that marketing researchers often study: a trade-off relationship between aesthetic appeal and practical utility. Does this trade-off work? Unfortunately, I do not know whether adding design flavor attracts other consumers or helps makers charge more. However, it successfully attracted at least one person who had virtually no interest in boards before. Probably, this funny-looking board will remind me of a Canadian store and bring much to share with my guests.
Background Designers often consider consumer design evaluations. However, whether consumer design evaluations are trustworthy has been rarely discussed. We propose that consumers equate the concept of design with the concept of uniqueness, which suggests that their design valuations are context dependent and unstable.
Methods We test our proposition by conducting one pilot study and three main studies. The pilot study examines which criteria consumers consider when evaluating a design. The three main studies test whether consumer design evaluations depend on the situation and unique products.
Results The results of the pilot study and three main studies demonstrate that subjects evaluated design using aesthetic and functional attributes and their design evaluations were based on the attributes that are not popular in a specific situation.
Conclusions This study contributes to the academic discussion of whether consumer design evaluations are stable. Our findings demonstrate that consumers construct design evaluations on the spot. Therefore, designers who have accumulated professional experience and knowledge, are recommended to follow their own design evaluations rather than the voice of customers.
“Thinner, lighter, this is Oreo” This is the first sentence that appears in the Oreo Thins commercial in July 2016. It also says “slim and slender we want more and more,” suggesting that this new cookie targets at the people who used to hesitate to eat Oreo cookies for their high calories. Interestingly however, there is little difference between Oreo and Oreo Thins in terms of calorie: 245kcal and 220kcal.
We decide to modify the target of the commercial. Since there is no significant decrease in terms of calories, targeting only for ladies is inappropriate. We extend the target by including men. We also appeal the key advantage of Oreo Thins. Unlike the original Oreo, it does not need milk. Therefore, dunking or twisting is not needed. In sum, people can eat Oreo Thins elegantly.
The Corona brand is associated with relaxation and a temporary escape from stress. The original commercial attempts to show that through a man and a woman relaxing on an exotic, white sand beach somewhere in Mexico. The original ad does not seem to capture the product’s target market and fails to depict how everyday consumers can enjoy the product.
After watching the original commercial, we decided to change a couple of points. The cast that we included in our ad change attempts to better portray the profile of Corona’s target market. Not only do men account for over 80% of the product’s consumption, but Corona also attempts to target middle to high class males between the ages of 21-35 who lead professional or semi-professional lifestyles; we tried to capture this customer profile in our ad.
We also wanted to incorporate a sporting aspect into our ad because we think it’ll help us better communicate our message and better resonate with the product’s target market. Corona is associated with many sporting events, and can frequently be seen sponsoring events such as the US LPGA tour (golf), NASCAAR, and multiple soccer teams.
Finally, the scene of two coworkers playing basketball after a stressful day of work and relaxing on the bench while drinking a cold beer portrays the message that simply finding the time to relax with friends while drinking Corona can make you feel like you’re on vacation. We believe that most people will have a feeling of familiarity to a situation like this compared to relaxing on an exotic beach.
