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Stuck on a plane one can easily get forced into doing something someone should never do, leaf through the pages of the Sky Mall catalog. You are trapped, powerless and while you thought you were taking a brief rest from the consumer society it's all there in glorious color. Staring at you from the catalog's pages are products for needs that you never knew you had, they include; gargoyles to scare off intruders, the ten commandments rendered in solid resin tablets to be placed in your garden for all to see and pet steps. Things we really don't need, but in a moment of extreme boredom, perhaps we can be persuaded otherwise.

There's a magic seduction at work, the catalog's copy works very hard to convince us, compensating for these poorly designed products and they do a good job, the Ten Commandments tablets for example;

"Celebrate the text that has withstood the test of time the words Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Our faux stone tablet is both historic and inspiring, and makes a defining statement in your home or garden. Cast in quality designer resin exclusively for Design Toscano, the scripture is written in English on one side and ancient Hebrew dialect on the other. Sand can be placed in the base for extra ballast. See Additional Views for detail of Hebrew Side."

Let's contrast this world with Apple's new iPod, the Nano. Its advertising is unabashed, it makes no claims that this is a product we need, it is all about the lust of want. The TV spot just features the hands of a Nano owner, playing and showing off the product while a jealous neighbor's hands are trying to grab it and play. The ad does nothing but show the beauty of the design for 30 seconds, in a way that cleverly reflects a truth about our desire for the product.

The point here is that there are some products that need to be sold hard by creating a need and a few that use design to do all the heavy lifting. However, in corporate America, design is an overlooked selling tool. Only a handful of companies get it; Apple have led the way for years in computing, but after years of selling dull boxes, Detroit is only just getting passionate about design, as witnessed by the stunning new Saturn Sky from GM .

In a world where the visual coda is so dominant, great design breaks through like nothing else and in its purity and clarity it beats the hard sell every time.

Method is one company that's used design to successfully carve out a niche in the competitive market for household cleaning products. Eric Ryan, Method's founder will be speaking at Influx's M-Squared Conference on the future of marketing. The conference's other speakers are, Howard Rheingold, Chris Anderson, Current TV and Jody Turner, Trend Director at The Gap's Old Navy brand.