For
my Customer Insights course we need to create a current topic report exploring
a customer insights subject in depth.
For my paper, I would like to cover design thinking in
entertainment. As a media enthusiast and
former member of the entertainment industry, I have been thinking a lot about
how many of the elements of design thinking have their origins in creative
industries such as entertainment.
However, I find that in the past decade or so, entertainment has drifted
more and more toward the “better bets” that are derivative of other popular
works (i.e. sequels, adaptations of works in other areas). Market testing is done frequently and any negative
feedback perceived as having a box office impact results in re-edits, rewrites,
and drastic changes in branding for a movie or television show.
What I would like to explore in this
paper is how bringing design thinking to entertainment, specifically film and television,
can change the direction the studio-oriented industry as a whole is heading
toward. My hope would be that by injecting
some insights based around what consumers want and need from entertainment, not
only will movies and shows track better with audiences but they might also
contribute more to our culture. Like
many others today, I am concerned about the “sequel machine” and the need for “a
sure hit” crumbling our creative culture into mainly derivative works with
original, fresh concepts few and far between.
How can we support creative ideas that better reflect what the public
actually wants to see and prevent pouring resources into concepts that sound
like past successes but end up being faint shadows of that which they are
trying to imitate?
This topic is fascinating to me
because I have always been intrigued by how ideas are generated, especially for
creative works. Creative ideas often
seem so personal and taking them to a large studio or network often means that
the idea gets shifted and adjusted for better mass consumption. When I was going to film school in my
undergraduate years, there was a sense of hope and optimism about how our work
could change “the studio machine” and have a real impact on our culture and our
world. As someone who is interested in
optimizing systems, I feel that concepts from our course such as not
condescending to your consumer could make a huge difference in changing the
current studio or television network systems into something closer to what my
colleagues and I envisioned back in school.
Perhaps this is because I’ve been pursuing a career in management consulting
upon coming back to school and that’s made me more aware of the flaws that can
lurk in large systems such as that of a movie studio. I’d like to combine my interests in change
management, customer insights, and entertainment to explore how truly consumer-based
design could be a revolutionary movement in the film and television industry.
When thinking about entertainment
from a design perspective, it becomes clear that entertainment has the power to
impact consumers on each level covered by the Strategic Experience Module. From sensory appeal to emotional resonance and
inspiring action to provoking thought and connecting us to our world and even
our higher selves, entertainment when done well moves us. A great movie or television show can not only
transport us but transform us. The
current systems use research in a way that tends to be superficial,
mass-oriented, and money-driven. I want
to use the research techniques, specific persona creation, and concept of compassion
for the consumer that we have learned about in this class to chart a course for
user-centered movies and television.
In the early stages of my research
for this paper, I have found a couple of sources I think will be helpful. The first is a paper from the journal Innovation: Management Policy & Practice
from Fall 2012, “Innovation in cultural industries: The role of university
links” by Elena Zukauskaite. This paper
discusses applying R&D techniques similar to what we’ve been discussing in
class to “cultural industries” such as entertainment. While design thinking and other innovation-oriented
techniques can be used in any company, Zukauskaite makes the point that R&D
companies tend to be the only ones who utilitze this resource. She also discusses universities as an
important place where innovation can occur and has a case study of several media
companies and how they use innovation.
Relationships with universities have a correlation to how innovative a
company is across many different arenas such as products, processes, and
strategy.
Another source I have found is a
blog entry from Innovation Architecture
by Doug Collins from May of 2012, “Reimagining Media Through Collaborative
Innovation.” I found this post
interesting because it talks about how Kickstarter and Twitter have turned the
viewers into authors and creators. He
also discusses how Quirky could be used to crowdsource concepts for new movies,
webisodes, or shows. The digital nature
of our world is changing and eroding the barrier between user and product. This changes the relationship between the
user and the studios and networks as well, as the users become collaborators
instead of mere consumers. While this
is not necessarily a direction that would work for a large established studio, I
would like to use this post as a jumping off point for ideas as to what form
user-oriented design in entertainment might take.
The questions I would like to answer
in this paper are:
- · How can design thinking techniques be applied to entertainment, specifically film and television?
- · What would a user-oriented film production company look like? What would a user-oriented television production company look like? This section would also explore how a company such as this could generate enough revenue to make a profit.
- · How can a movie studio or television company today start moving toward user-oriented design? What steps can be taken and what might the costs be?
- · Is Kickstarter or Quirky the way of the future in terms of entertainment or will it remain a way to fund a subsection of the industry?
