Peter Merholz at Adaptive Path wrote a post grandiosely titled “The Pernicious Effects of Advertising and Marketing Agencies Trying To Deliver User Experience Design.” Luckily I know what pernicious means, but it did take awhile to find an adjective to make my title as diffuse long-winded wordy.

To summarize the post, Peter believes that since advertising and marketing agencies engage in a “poisonous endeavor” and see people as “sheep to be manipulated” they can’t create good user experience. Well that got my dander up and I feel like I can respond from deep within the “Poisonous Core.”

To be fair, I think Adaptive Path is a great company that does exceptional work. I’m a proud owner of Indi Young’s “Mental Models," but I think they are a bit off the mark here. Peter took the time to write the piece, so I want to take the time to respond to each of his points with some thought.

I am sure that there are some agencies that are everything Peter says they are: I can only speak for Masterworks, where I work. I’ve not commented on some of his points that simply don’t apply because we work differently than a typical agency.

The Poisonous core
I don’t believe that encouraging someone to do something that they otherwise aren’t inclined to do is inherently unethical. While Peter doesn’t come right out and say it, that’s the general impression I get.

If we should always let people do what they want and not try to change their choices, then you have to say that Breast Cancer awareness is unethical. If a woman doesn’t want a mammogram who is Susan G. Komen to tell her that she should, they shouldn’t try to scare people into doing something they don’t want to do.

An extreme example to be sure, but we all need to be reminded of things we should do and don’t want to.

It is my job to convince you to donate to an organization you haven't donated to before, does that make me a bad person? If I do it with integrity, I don't think so.

Customers are sheep
Here Peter says that, “user experience tends to favor the end-user over the client, sometimes to the client’s chagrin.” Well it must be nice to work in an industry where you don’t have to satisfy the people that pay you.

Zappos goal is not to deliver a great customer experience; their goal is to sell products. Tell me all you want, that’s not what they are about and how cool their core values are and how they are on twitter. At the end of the day their primary metric of success if profitability not customer satisfaction. And if someone from Zappos is reading this and thinks I’m wrong, start sending me free shoes – size 13 Adidas please.

At the end of the day the work we do is judged by how many people give. Perhaps that means our clients are "misguided" and they should be more donor focused, but I think they are realistic. No nonprofit makes money by people visiting their website.

Ad agencies are the new music industry
I certainly hope not, or I won't be able to keep up my fine beer habit. Seriously though, the way donors act and react is changing so he's right that there is a risk if agencies don't change. There are days when I worry about Masterworks and if we are changing fast enough.

We do know that we have to delight donors, but we also realize that you have to ask.

It’s the first rule of fundraising and it isn’t going to change.