Design Is Not Dead
David Shing, known to everyone as Shingy, spent over a decade as AOL's self-styled Digital Prophet before going independent in 2019 to advise brands on creativity, culture and what comes next. A designer by training and a futurist by trade, he reads the industry through three anchors that never change: performance, story and feel. He argues that marketing has over-indexed on the first and forgotten the last, that niche has become the new mass, and that attention has given way to intention. He is one of the most recognisable, and most quotable, figures in the business.
Do lots and lots and lots of littles. And if something becomes contagious, then put media behind it.
David Shing is a futurist, creative director, brand strategist, and entrepreneur known universally as Shingy. For over a decade, he served as AOL's self-titled Digital Prophet, a role that made him one of the most recognisable and polarising figures in the advertising industry, before launching his own independent consultancy in 2019.
Shing grew up in suburban Australia and studied at Billy Blue Design School in Sydney, training as one of the last generation of traditional graphic designers who could tell the difference between Bimbo and Garamond by eye and hung cone fonts by hand. In his early twenties he helped invent internet technologies that took him to America, where he spent several years in startup land before joining AOL in 2007 as Marketing Director for AOL Europe. He was promoted to VP of Media and Marketing for AOL International in 2010, and in 2011 created the Digital Prophet role after telling then-CEO Tim Armstrong that AOL's mission statement at the time 'stunk.' He stayed through the company's transformations into Oath and then Verizon Media before departing in 2019 to work independently.
His consultancy, Shingy, advises global brands on creative strategy, digital engagement, and emerging technologies. He has worked with clients including LVMH, Chanel, and Nike, and is a co-inventor on several technology-related patents. A prolific keynote speaker, David has appeared on stages at CES, SXSW, TEDx, and Cannes Lions, and in media including MSNBC and a feature profile in The New Yorker. His distinctive look and idiosyncratic speaking style have made him as much a cultural figure as a marketing one, earning him a parody character called Shangy in the comedy sketch show W/ Bob & David. He lives in New York with his wife Lia.
At the core of his thinking is a philosophy built on three anchors: performance, story, and feel. He argues that while the industry obsesses over data-driven performance metrics, the brands that truly connect are the ones that make you feel something. His long-standing thesis that niche is the new mass has been vindicated by the rise of TikTok and algorithm-driven discovery, and he has evolved his framework from attention to intention, arguing that the conscious decision to engage matters more than passive scrolling. He is a designer by trade and believes that design remains the first entry point to any brand, followed by creativity, then the media that amplifies both. Forbes described him as a storyteller who identifies emerging trends and inspires clients to think differently.
Big data, small decisions. Those small decisions, they become micro habits. Those micro habits are estimations of our needs.
I walk around here and I see, we have the best data on planet earth. Great, that's a performance metric. But what's the story as to why I'd want to be with you or believe in you? The one I care about most is feel. What do I get when I feel a brand? There's 8 billion people. We all have different ways of thinking about how we're going to feel that brand. And there's more environments than ever.
Shing reduces marketing to three anchors he believes never change, only evolve: performance, story and feel. The industry, he says, is fluent in the first. Walk any conference floor and every stand claims the best data on the planet, which is a performance metric and nothing more. Fewer can tell you the story of why anyone should believe in them, and almost none attend to the third, which is the one he cares about most. Feel is what a brand leaves you with, and with eight billion people across more environments than ever, it is also the hardest thing to engineer and the thing that actually makes someone choose you.
For 10 years I've been saying niche is the new mass. I've seen people head tilt and go, what the hell is this guy talking about? If I look at TikTok, it is all niche. The things you groove out on are going to be very different than what I groove out on. That's the value of these places that allow us to create affinity.
For ten years Shing has told audiences that niche is the new mass, and for ten years he has watched heads tilt. TikTok, he argues, settled the question. The platform is nothing but niches; what you groove out on bears no resemblance to what the next person does, and that difference is the point. The value of these places is not reach but affinity, the sense that a thing was made for you and the people like you. Brands that try to be for everyone end up resonating with no one, while those that find their specific audience and earn its trust travel further than any mass campaign.
I used to say attention is the new economy. I've moved on, dude. It's now intention. If I'm going to pull out my phone and interrupt a conversation, I've made an intention that is different than attention, which is just swiping through life. It's very different.
Shing used to say attention was the new economy. He has since dropped it. The currency now, he argues, is intention. Pulling a phone out to interrupt a conversation is a decision, an act of will, and it is categorically different from the passive swiping that fills most of a day. Attention is given without thought and worth little; intention is chosen, and a brand that earns an intentional moment has earned something real. The job, then, is not to capture eyeballs but to be worth the deliberate act of turning toward.
The democratisation of creative tools, I love that, man. The counter to that is, with democratisation comes homogenisation. That's where incredible, flamboyant, misunderstood people have these ways to stand out. Anybody could become a hero of these platforms. It's just hard for that to be sustainable.
Shing loves that creative tools have been democratised, that anyone with a phone can now make and publish. He is clear-eyed about the cost. When everyone has the same tools, the work starts to look the same, and democratisation quietly produces homogenisation. That, he says, is exactly when the flamboyant, the fluid and the genuinely odd become valuable, because originality is the only thing that cannot be downloaded. AI lowers the barrier to creation further still, which raises rather than lowers the premium on a real creative voice, and makes the difference between making something and being creative the whole game.
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