Emotion's Role in Technology Products

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 9, Emotion's Role in Technology Products (10 pages), the authors consider how the value of emotion extends into markets typically regarded as non-emotional. They consider the potential for high-emotion products in the fields of nanotechnology, medical products and healthcare, space systems, and robotics. They explain why most technology and healthcare companies have not yet explored emotion in their product development and why it is increasingly important for this pattern to change. They also explore the power of aesthetically-pleasing designs and the emerging field of socially assistive robotics.

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