Auto and Computer Industries: Today’s Delicate Balance of Form and Function
yWhen it comes to form and function, the huge industries behind cars and computers perhaps struggle most to keep the delicate balance for today’s consumers. Both realms have long been run in very traditional ways, with product development and marketing decisions based mainly on linear thinking. But, any brand that has stuck solely to that approach has not been paying attention to modern consumer expectations.
For two examples of companies that ARE at least attempting to stay in tune with consumers, let’s look at both GM, one of the seemingly fast-fading American car brands, and the computer industry overall. Each has gotten recent press about their new focus on more whole brain thinking. The hope is that combining left AND right brain hemispheres will do a lot to ensure that customers get heard, and that function and design each get the weight they deserve at every step of the way. I think they are each heading in the right direction.
The GM news:
According to a recent Associated Press story, left brain has been joined - and is perhaps now being guided - by right brain thinking at GM. As Lutz put it in that interview, the process for developing and designing new cars had previously been overly rational: "The feeling was, if we give them a nice car with lots of features, and we make it very roomy and very reliable and very functional, people will realize what a good rational purchase this is and we will get great sales. And then it didn’t happen."
What Lutz did was add right brain aesthetics and emotion to GM’s process - just as he had, to great success, for Chrysler in the 1990s. In fact, leading industry analyst David Cole credits Lutz with creating "a huge transformation by giving designers more power early on."
(I wrote more about this in my latest eBrandMarketing.com post, if you are interested.)
The computer industry news:
In a Wall Street Journal article, writers Robert A. Guth, Justin Scheck and Don Clark explore the design changes occurring in the PC realm. From Dell to HP to Lenovo, brands are giving color, texture and form much more priority - especially as they chase the Apple-fanatic market. As the writer’s put it: "It won’t be easy. Producing new shapes and materials can raise costs and require tricky changes to production lines."
And, then there’s the reality that serving customers such a wide and ever-changing "look" will likely cause more problems: "Moreover, it’s unclear if most consumers will pay a premium for style.
Companies that focus too much on fashion over function could end up
with costly misses as trendy designs fall out of favor with fickle
consumers."
But, let’s face it. PCs do have a ways to go to catch up with Apple, a brand that has long since held the consumer-friendly function and gorgeous-form advantage. Anyway…
While it is exciting in and of itself to consider the expanding range of computer choices on the store shelves, the other benefit of traditional industries committing a bit more to design is seen in the overall culture. Today’s PC manufacturers have really had to open up their hiring, and seek team members with a more artistic/creative than technological orientation. A better balance of the two kinds of thinkers will keep the ideas and sales flowing over the next decades.
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So… What we seem to have here, in both the cases of GM/Bob Lutz and the computer industry, is a whole brain type of consumer driving the development of whole brain brands and industries that need to hire more whole brain thinkers.*
Hallelujah. If two very traditional industries taking such steps is any indication, the future really does look bright.
*Note: We can thank Dan Pink and his book, A Whole New Mind, for the concept which, I believe, is raising new awareness among even the most traditional thinkers.
January 6th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Just want to let you know that Dan Pink will be my guest on Living Hero towards the end of February. Just enter your email in the subscription box on http://livinghero.com to receive an email when the Podcast is broadcast. I’m writing to you and others in advance to give you a chance to participate in the formation of the interview questions. Just type your question into the question box widget on the right column of the page. Also, to see recent blog posts, just click into the recent posts question in the right side column. Once the Podcast is posted, comments can be added at the bottom of the podcast post. I look forward to a highly generative ongoing conversation and I do hope you’ll be part of it! Please spread the word! My very best, Jari Chevalier