The Emotion of Form and Touchpoints to Create It

Built to Love: Creating Products That Captivate Customers is a 10-chapter book published in 2010 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. and written by Peter Boatwright, Associate Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business, and Jonathan Cagan, the George Tallman and Florence Barrett Ladd Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. The authors explain how and why evoking an emotional connection with the customer enables certain products to enjoy market success. They explore key concepts around high-emotion products and present research that proves the value of emotion in product success. Drawing on numerous real-world examples, including an extended case study of Navistar, they outline a model for creating high-emotion products in three phases: identify emotional opportunity, develop a product strategy, and transfer strategy into product features. They provide practical guidance and insight for managers. In Chapter 7, The Emotion of Form and Touchpoints to Create It (24 pages), the authors focus on using a product's visual form to evoke emotions. They emphasize the importance of creating a "visual brand language" to link the product form and product emotion strategy. They show how Harley Davidson and Buick used consistent visual brand languages to successfully create multiple products under one brand. They explain how an effective visual brand language can drive both product development and market differentiation, drawing from Whirlpool Corporation as an example. They explain a four-step process for turning strategy into touchpoints, or points of customer interaction: identification of attributes, integration into design, product testing, and production and evolution.

• Brand management
• Product development
• Innovation
• Strategic positioning
• Psychology and neuroscience
• Consumer behavior