a statistic that may actually get your CFO and CEO to pay attention

Here’s a stat for your CFO at budget time

We’ve been preaching for years that Marketing should drive the bus, not just go for a ride in the back. Now there’s a statistic that may actually get your CFO and CEO to pay attention:

Ten years ago, if you had invested $10K in design-centric corporations you would have outperformed the S&P Index by 228%.

That’s right. According to the Harvard Business Review, your $10K investment would be worth almost $40K, easily besting the $17.5K you would have gotten from the S&P Index. And, as the author points out, “Neither hedge fund managers, nor venture capitalists, nor mutual fund managers came anywhere close to these results.”

Motiv Strategies and the Design Management Institute used multiple criteria (publicly traded for 10+ years; integrated focus on design; experienced design executives and senior leadership-level commitment) to compare design-centric companies against those that are not. They selected 15 companies to compare to results with the S&P Index: Apple, Coca-Cola, Ford, Herman-Miller, IBM, Intuit, Newell-Rubbermaid, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Starwood, Steelcase, Target, Walt Disney, Whirlpool, and Nike.

Granted, these are gigantic, well-known corporations. But how do you think they got to be so big and famous?

By making design part of their brand, and viewing marketing as a way to connect with their customers.

Something to consider as you send in your budget for next year.

Kent Dicken
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