Table Of ContentThe Design Imperative
Steven Chen
The Design
Imperative
The Art and Science of Design
Management
Steven Chen
Department of Marketing
Mihaylo College of Business and Economics
California State University
Fullerton, CA, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-78567-7 ISBN 978-3-319-78568-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78568-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942223
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019
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Contents
1 Introduction: The Design Imperative 1
2 H arvesting a Culture of Design: A Review
of Organizational Design Research 13
3 Product Design Research: A Review 37
4 Th e Design Studio Approach 55
5 To Develop a Design Language (or Not) 71
6 Design Teams Versus the Lone Designer 87
7 The Open Office: Google and the Modern Penitentiary 101
8 Design Thinking Approaches 111
9 The Product Life Cycle and Product Design 123
10 Designing Extraordinary Service Experiences 143
v
vi Contents
11 Design and Global Culture 171
12 Product Design Analytics 205
13 Conclusion: The Keys to Successful Design 215
Index 227
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 A framework for harvesting a culture of design 16
Fig. 4.1 Toolkit: The 50+ consumer and bicycling 64
Fig. 9.1 The product life cycle 126
Fig. 9.2 Ansoff’s growth matrix 134
Fig. 12.1 Alexo knife designs with product design scores from
a non-segmented sample 206
Fig. 12.2 Alexo knife designs with product design scores for
high-CVPA consumers 212
vii
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Sample of design process models 18
Table 3.1 Literature that examines the dimensions of product design 42
Table 10.1 Jobs mapping framework 152
Table 10.2 Service segments (aka Practice Styles) 158
Table 11.1 Comparison of mode-of-entry strategies 175
Table 11.2 Personas of ethnic consumers 186
ix
1
Introduction: The Design Imperative
Fifteen years ago, companies competed on price. Today it’s quality. Tomorrow
it’s design. – Robert Hayes, Harvard University (Dumaine 1991)
Coors Light: A Design Story
Cool, hip brands with phenomenal product designs litter the market-
place. Apple has its iPhone. Porsche’s vehicles are immediately recogniz-
able by the car mark’s distinct design language. Coca-Cola’s contour
bottle has been a mainstay on retail shelves for over a century. And
Herman Miller’s mesh-based Aeron chair is a ubiquitous choice for mod-
ern offices. These examples are products with “iconic” designs, and they
emerge from organizations that have heavily invested in a culture of
design.
But let us not use cool, hip brands. It is too easy. Instead, let us use an
example of a mundane product, because it is through the lens of the
mundane that the power of design really shines through. The mundane
product is American light beer, and the brand is Coors Light. American
light beer is somewhat of a joke to beer aficionados and consumers who
come from cultures where beer consumption is a hallowed pastime. To
© The Author(s) 2019 1
S. Chen, The Design Imperative, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78568-4_1
2 S. Chen
these consumers, American light beer has no taste. It is for lightweights.
It is a little better than dirty water. These sentiments are felt even in the
United States, where domestic beer has lost market share as consumers
have turned to wines, spirits, and craft beers.
In this light, the recent resurgence of Coors Light, a “watered down
beer,” is remarkable. Since 2006, Coors Light is the only top-10 beer to
record consistent sales growth. What is the secret to Coors Light’s suc-
cess? The answer is simple, but genius. In the mid-2000s, Coors’ Chief
Marketing Officer Andrew England steered marketing efforts on “cold”
as opposed to taste (Kusentz 2012). And the cold factor was enhanced
by…? You guessed it! Design.
In 2006, England launched Coors Light’s cold campaign by naming
the liner that already existed within their containers. The “Frost Brew
Liner” gave consumers the feeling that Coors Light cans did something
special for them. One year later, Coors Light introduced its cold- activated
bottle, which has a thermo-chromatic label that turned blue when the
beer was cold. In 2008, the same label technology was migrated to Coors
Light’s aluminum cans. Around 2010, England introduced the cold-
activated window, where packages of Coors Light were given a cutout so
that consumers could see whether their Coors Light turned blue. Finally,
in 2011, Coors Light implemented a two-stage cold activation label,
which is differentiated by cold (blue) and supercold (dark blue). These
design modifications continue to the current day.
Coors Light’s cold campaign was driven by design. Yes, it was a pack-
aging design gimmick; MillerCoors did not reformulate Coors Light. But
what the redesign did do was communicate information in a clever way
that resonated with consumers. The packaging redesign contributed to an
increase in Coors Light’s market share. In 2012, Coors Light debunked
Budweiser to become the #2 beer brand in the United States (after Bud
Light).
According to former Sony CEO, Norio Ogha, “all products of our
competitors have basically the same technology, price, performance and
features. Design is the only thing that differentiates one product from
another in the marketplace.” This is certainly the case in the light beer
category, which MillerCoors CMO Andrew England admits is a “rela-
tively non-differentiated segment.”
