Designing for Generation Y (2 of 3): Four Ps in a blog

The diagram below is basic to marketing 101: The Four Ps of Social Marketing. Not much here in terms of design (except that it is a nicely designed diagram-for which I can’t take credit), but its core messages of identifying and using the Four Ps of Social Marketing are as essential for Design as they are for Marketing.



Product. You need to know the product to know why and how it appeals to your target, and design it to accentuate that appeal. In comics, I called it the “screaming baby factor.” All comics are arranged on a rack, like a line of screaming babies. You can’t get your baby to scream any louder in order to get picked up. It’s got to scream differently, better, somehow more personally to the target, to get him or her to pick that baby up.

Price. Not in the control of Design, unless we’re talking about how to accentuate the difference (savings) in price from comparable product, and how to position it so that this accentuation isn’t obvious. Like a website that doesn’t easily reveal its navigation system, a package that hides its pricing just annoys.

Promotion. The design element here is mainly in terms of persuasion, and again often in tandem with price.

Place. Design aspects here mainly lie in the contextual text—say how its arranged on a cover so that the key text is revealed on a rack, or how its arranged on a box so that it calls out in its best screaming baby voice amongst all the other products on the shelves.

Of course, using the Four Ps requires understanding the demographic you’re appealing to, and some experience in design language to know what is most appropriate to that segment. But the research is out there. The art is in the interpretation.

Next: Some conclusions