Crowd-sourcing the designer right out of the room

Fascinating article in the NYTimes SundayBusiness section yesterday. You can read it yourself, but here’s the nub of the question: with immediate, quantitative feedback available so readily online, what role should the designer play? Nearly every aesthetic decision can be measured now, which makes it a tempting trap to let the crowd decide how a brand should not only behave, but even how thin the rule should be around the logo file.

This seems to completely hamstring the potential of design, reducing it to operate completely in the margins. I’m a big believer that the consumer ultimately drives the brand as I've posted before. But marketers must look at users’ intent, frustrations and ambitions first, then design the experience appropriately.

Why aren’t brands flirting with me anymore?

There are worse things to be accused other than a “flirt.” A good flirtation can make your day, whether you’re the receiver or instigator (or best of all, if you can participate in some mutually satisfactory flirtation). And I’m not talking (strictly) about man-woman interplay. We flirt with our clients, our vendors, the barista from whom we’re hoping to coax a more generous dollop of froth. I even flirt with my kids in the hope of drawing them into a family activity or get them to take an interest in a homework subject.

At its best, an ad campaigns is little more than a well-coordinated flirtation. It shows interest in you, and how you feel. It flatters your intelligence, and sophistication. And it leaves you with the promise of something more and exciting if you’ll just return the favor and spend just some additional time (consideration, money, etc.).

It seems that brands have lost their flirt. Advertisers have become more transaction based, building their core brand essence around generating immediate response, and what’s being squeezed out of the conversation is even the effort to show interest in consumers as people with lives and desires and egos to stroke. Blame it on the current economy, sure. But I think this began way before the current downturn and escalated retail urgency. Even categories that should be steeped in seduction (travel, high-end autos, cosmetics) have taken on the shrill and somewhat desperate tone of blunt mercantile exchanges. Where’s the romance?

Here’s one theory. We consumers don’t want our brands to make goo-goo eyes at us anymore. Our collective cynicism have built up because the brands we’ve given our heart to over the years have disappointed us or simply gone away. Besides, if I want to flirt and be flirted with, we can always Twitter. After all, a good flirtation should be accomplishable in 40 characters or less.