Bridging the Chasm between Design and Marketing: Problems and Solutions in the Integration Between Design and Marketing

Abstract

Although integrating design and marketing is critical for successful new product development (NPD), there has been a limited attention to the potential problems that arise during the NPD process and their possible solutions in academic literature. In order to narrow this gap, our study conducted a series of surveys of an interdisciplinary class project between marketing and design students over two year periods at one of U.S. universities. From the survey data collected from the total of 65 students who participated in the collaboration projects, we identified two most common problems: (1) conflict from the functional background, and (2) the conflict from imbalanced decision-making authority between design and marketing. In order to resolve such conflict, we found the two contrasting solutions: (1) facilitating communication and (2) prohibiting communication. Our findings contribute to the formation of a theoretical basis for research on the topic of design-marketing integration.