Winning Content by Leen Jones

I just read a rather bothersome post, The marketing view of user-centered design, on the highly respected blog Putting people first.  The post takes excerpts from an article about customer-centric marketing and says they are marketing’s perspective on UCD.  I don’t understand the logic.  The article does not mention UCD or claim to cover how to develop products and services.  What the article does do, however, is emphasize understanding and listening to customers for brand differentiation, message development, and feedback on products and services.  All good things.  Marketing can get very focused on the message a company is trying to convey and lose sight of who they are conveying to.  To conclude from the article that marketing views UCD a certain way is illogical and unfair because the article was not trying to express a view on it.  We can’t assume that just because the author did not mention UCD that he has a certain view of it.

More disturbing about the Putting people first post, however, is the view of marketing as easy, or a “piece of cake” with good products and services.  This could imply that UX or UCD is superior to marketing.  While this post was not smug, I hear many smug comments from UX professionals about marketing. I am afraid they will interpret the post as more justification to keep doing so.  If a smug attitude toward marketing is growing in the UX community, it needs to stop.  Why?  Because the UX and marketing communities need to collaborate well to create the best possible customer experience.

I think this smugness comes partly from misunderstanding marketing.  It is easy to condemn what one doesn’t understand.  In my UXMatters article “Marketing Isn’t a Dirty Word,” I provide some insight.  I only scratch the surface, but I think it helps show why well-implemented marketing is complex and valuable.

This smugness also may stem from experiences with bad marketing implementations or less-than-stellar representatives of marketing.  Understanding marketing can help with those issues, too.

I completely agree with Putting people first that marketing should flow from good products and services with a strong user experience influence.  I simply disagree that it makes marketing easy and the implication that it makes user experience superior.