“Marketing = Design = Innovation” – Daniel Lock

Posted by Mal Chia on May 22nd, 2009 at 12:44pm

Peter Drucker famously said that there are only two aspects to business, marketing and innovation. Right now, during this recession, there must be a total focus on marketing.

McGraw Hill carried out a research study of 600 businesses that those businesses that aggressively advertised during the 1981-982 recession increased sales by an average 256% up to 1985. In fact there was a 132% 5-year growth in sales over those firms that did not advertise, but tried to hold their capital.

However, innovation must not be ignored, and it is imperative that companies create new products and new ways of doing things both to reduce costs and to offer their customers new ways of creating results at this difficult time.

In fact, marketing is a combination of innovation and advertising, and marketing and R&D are linked. They must go hand in hand, since no amount of marketing will sell a poorly innovated or designed product, and without marketing, even the best product will never sell. It doesn’t need too many examples to demonstrate that simple fact.

Take Apple. Their marketing is second to none, but marketing is made very easy for them due to their brilliantly innovated products. Deep into this recession, Apple have recorded record profits for the first quarter of 2009. This is 6% up from last year. This is what Apple says:

Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history—surpassing $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time eversaid

- Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

Marketing involves knowing your customers’ needs, and focusing clearly on these with laser pinpoint accuracy. Provide the products and services your customers want, and everything else follows naturally.

I want to post a quote by Steve Jobs about design from Buxton’s book:

Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But, of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works. To design something really well, you have to ‘get it.’ You have to really grok [understand] what it’s all about.

Apple focuses their marketing and innovation on design. A focus on elegance and functionality offers products that fit their customer’s needs so well that these customers have only one decision to make – not shall I or shan’t I, but how!

Marketing = Design = Innovation