User-Oriented Design in Entertainment: Could It Revolutionize the Industry?

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?