Product Emotions and Product Strategy

Certainly, a product should include more than just emotional value. The performance attributes of the product must deliver value for customer satisfaction in the short-term and long-term. The feeling of quality ties to actual quality, the feeling of safety ties to actual safety, and in vehicles, the feeling of control ties to the actual control.

In the 1990s Chrysler had significant quality problems with their transmissions. Cars with thoughtful lifestyle features (and surprises like hooks to hold grocery bags, to the delight of customers at the grocery store) and aggressive styling soon disappointed customers as their transmissions failed, sometimes right after their warranties ran out. These surprises did not delight and, as a company, Chrysler lost customers for the long-term.

In this case, the quality that was originally tied to the emotions of satisfaction, security, contentment, and honor led to customer emotions of uncertainty, envy, lack of consideration, and vulnerability. It’s not just the vehicle with the faulty transmission that loses equity, but the Chrysler brand as a whole. Although multiple factors contributed to the downturn in the U.S. auto industry at the early part of the 21st century, lingering emotions like these could not have helped.

Companies must have a long-term strategy for product emotion and a process to deliver high-emotion products. When a company designs or produces a product, emotions will be intentionally or unintentionally infused into the product as the customer experiences that product. A company can and must intentionally design an emotion-based experience, meaning that the company’s product should evoke emotions that their customers desire to experience over the life of the product and not simply to stimulate purchase. These ongoing emotions are the means to enable a brand and set of products to resonate with its customers, fueling the firm’s growth and profits.

Conversely, companies who are unintentional in planning for emotions leave it to chance. In order to intentionally deliver high-emotion experiences, a company must understand why emotion is important and identify those emotions that matter to its customers. These emotions will form the basis for a product emotion strategy from which products are designed. Accomplishing this is not arbitrary. A rigorous process of innovation is required to consistently understand which emotions are desired and to evoke those emotions in products while also fulfilling needs.

Product emotions must be designed; products must be built to love!