Design eats advertising.

Two years ago I made a prediction among friends that design would evolve to include marketing communications. And now, 700+ days later, I’m feeling even more confident. Mix equal parts design, advertising, and marketing, and you’re looking squarely at the future of our industry.

I shoved that idea into my back pocket and forgot about it until recently when I caught an ancient episode of AMC’s reality show The Pitch. The basic premise: two ad agencies go head to head, vying for the same big account. Every once in a while it’s a David versus Goliath type story, but usually, it’s a couple of decent size firms dueling to the death. Overall I’d say the show is 20% interesting, 75% bullsh*t, and 5% other. But that 20% got me thinking again about the general state of design, and our future as an industry.

In The Pitch, the agencies have a week or so to brainstorm their campaign ideas; they spend 5-15 minutes (grossly understated for dramatic effect) getting to know the product/brand/user, and they’re off. It’s kind of like a diet version of phase one in a typical design program. Which got me thinking about my prediction; as designers, we know “the user” better than anyone else, we often define and then make the products/services that they need/want…why shouldn’t we sell it to them as well? After all, we’re hardly strangers to advertising; designers are often tasked with selling programs up the organizational chart using the very same tactics that ad agencies use to sell products/services to consumers: film/narrative/storytelling/etc. The process is similar, and like the design process, it hasn’t changed much—as far as I can tell from Mad Men.

As the design industry naturally moves toward providing end-to-end solutions, it’s fair to assume that the strategic frontend activity of defining and designing products and services will merge with the backend business of marketing products/services/brands to consumers.

Long story short: combine design as we know it today with advertising and marketing, and you get a pretty clear picture of what the future of design is going to look like. And it’s not a matter of IF, trust me, it’s a matter of WHEN. I for one am more than @#$%! excited to see who acquires their way into leading that category*; I believe that firm will own the future. And to all the design firms out there—keep in mind if you’re not first, you’re last.

*Turns out I was wrong—the firm that owns the future grew it organically. Bravo Huge!