Tom Fishburne: Marketoonist

the art of package design

Working at method has taught me that package design is the single most important part of your marketing plan. Founder Eric Ryan likes to say that he views cutting steel as a marketing expense. Once a consumer told me that he buys method because the package design makes him want to lick the bottles.

Remarkable design, whether in the store or in the consumer’s hand, makes every other aspect of marketing possible. Zero advertising on a remarkable product trumps heavy advertising on a mediocre product.

Remarkable design implies that it’s fundamentally different from what is already on the shelf. That’s what makes it worthy of remark. It is that fundamental difference that allows a brand to break through the clutter.

Yet there is reluctance to be different. In every design project I’ve witnessed, there has been a headwind that pressures the project to what has been done before. When that headwind blows from client to agency, it’s particularly hard to resist. Sometimes this headwind is created by the conventional rules of the category. Sometimes it’s a fear of alienating consumers. But the headwind, if not countered, restrains design to the path of least resistance.

The result is that the vast majority of products launched every year are not that different from what’s been launched before.

Seth Godin recently critiqued the package design of an African chocolate brand called Madecasse. Madecasse has a remarkable story (it’s the only imported chocolate brand made in Africa with local beans), but the package design looks no different than the myriad of high-end chocolate brands already on the market. The brand’s non-remarkable packaging actually camouflages the brand’s remarkable story.

The best cure I’ve found is to be stimulated by package design that tries something different. Dennis Thompson at Thompson Design Group sends out emails to all current and former clients several times a week with examples of provocative design he stumbles across.

If you don’t know Dennis, read The Dieline. Have everyone on your team (no matter what role they play) discuss those examples regularly. Instead of benchmarking off of what’s been done before, try to be inspired by package design that dares to be different.

the silent designers

My friend Adam at method asked if I could contribute a cartoon to a post he wrote for TreeHugger this week called "For design to create change, we must all become designers."

When talking about the post, he introduced me to the concept of “Silent Design”, an expression coined in the late 80’s by Peter Gorb and Angela Dumas in a London Business School paper: 

“A great deal of design activity goes on in organizations which is not called design. It is carried out by individuals who are not called designers and who would not consider themselves to be designers. We have called this 'silent design’.”

I like this broader, more holistic definition of design. Innovation is the output of such a diverse cast of characters, all of whom have the ability to impact the experience of a product and the role of that product in the world.

As an example, here’s a photo of Adam and some of the gang at method, standing in front of method’s first post-consumer recycled plastic resin silo a few years ago. This silo lets method make new bottles entirely from plastic that has already been recycled.

None of these guys would consider themselves designers in the traditional sense (we like to tease Drummond for wearing a black belt with brown shoes for the picture). Yet, the fact that we can use 100% previously recycled plastic is very much a part of our design. Design is so much broader than bottle shapes or font treatments. 

I think that businesses sometimes forget the essential holistic role of design.  Design can become marginalized to superficial window-dressing outsourced to agencies. Instead, it’s empowering to think of the silent design activity as Design with a capital D. And that everyone in the organization can and should think of themselves as designers. 

As a coincidence, I’m traveling late this week with Adam to remote Wales for an event called the DO Lectures, put on by howies, a brand that certainly thinks this way. They invited Adam to give a talk about business as an agent of change. Empowering the "silent designers" is a key ingredient.

art by committee

I stumbled across a great maxim recently: "a camel is a horse designed by committee."

It reminded me of this great spoof video from 2006 that imagines the packaging that would have resulted if Microsoft had launched the iPod instead of Apple.

What is most remarkable about this video is that Microsoft eventually confessed that Microsoft's own packaging department created it:

"It was an internal-only video clip commissioned by our packaging [team] to humorously highlight the challenges we have faced RE: packaging and to educate marketers here about the pitfalls of packaging/branding."

The video picked up such viral momentum, I doubt there's a packaging team in the world that didn't share it with their marketing team at some point as a cautionary tale.

Design is one of the most powerful tools that a brand has at its disposal, yet it is so often squandered. Many companies have effectively neutered their internal design teams and agencies by relegating them to minor supporting roles.

Great design can make the difference between remarkable products and commodity soup, but many design teams are only used for cosmetic window-dressing.

I like this method quote: "most companies draw distinction between strategy and creativity. We intentionally blur the lines."

In the same Fast Company article I discovered the maxim about the camel, Brett Lovelady offered "Seven Truths in Designing". Here's my favorite:

"Design is not a democracy. Democracies are fine, mainly for collecting diverse input. But they can kill design. Often too many opinions water down the clarity of the design intent. I've had many clients where there are way too many brilliant people involved in programs. They find it their duty to provide all the alternative solutions or insights to every program--always broadening the thinking--instead of focusing on decision-making. If not for the benevolent dictatorship of the program director in these programs, they would never reach the goal. Design requires focused leadership, not democratic consensus."

criticism sandwich

I always struggle with giving creative feedback.  I can only imagine what's it's like to be a creative director and have your work (which is inherently personal) continually critiqued in front of you.  I guess you learn to grow really thick skin (or plug your ears discretely).

This last week, I gave a cartoon talk to 200 people at Unilever, and it was surreal to flip through my cartoons on a jumbo screen waiting for the audience to get the joke and start laughing.  Usually, I send out my cartoons alone and I'm not there when people get them.  So, it was a little nerve-wracking to be on a stage hoping (and praying) that people would start laughing (anyone, anyone, Bueller, Bueller).  A bit like that old dream of showing up to school without your clothes.  Anyway, that's what I imagine it's like to be a creative director in a client meeting.

So, I always try to dose my creative feedback to others with plenty of ego stroking.  An early manager of mine described it as a "criticism sandwich", which led to this cartoon. 

the 8 types of creative directors

I've been really fortunate to have worked mostly with Creative Directors in "The Genius" camp.  But, I couldn't resist poking a little fun at some of the other archetypes.

This cartoon is a response of sorts to this other cartoon I drew a while back.

And, come to think of it, my first ever Brand Camp cartoon was in this vein too.