Building Products to Love

May 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Examples of products that people love include Apple iPods, Navistar's LoneStar truck, Webkinz stuffed animals and KitchenAid Toasters and waffle makers. These products meet the functional needs of the customers and they elicit a positive emotion. Emotions help all us to better capture our attention, to persuade us, and to help us remember.

Designing products and services that strike an emotional chord with customers doesn't happen by luck. Emotions must be understood and products designed with emotions clearly in mind.

Professors Peter Boatwright  and Jonathan Cagan at Carnegie Mellon, authors of "Built to Love"  are top experts in product development.  They have conducted extensive research in the field and consult with top product companies (e.g., Apple, Navistar/International Truck,  Procter & Gamble, Alcoa, Whirlpool, Lubrizo).  

Peter and Jonathan outline in their book a simple, three-step process for developing products that meet the emotional needs of the consumers:

1.   Determine appropriate emotions. Determine what feelings you would like the product to evoke?
2.   Craft emotion strategy. Determine how your product will evoke the feelings.
3.   Translate strategy into features. Determine the points where the customer will interact with the product - called "touchpoints."

To read a review of their book visit http://strategy-keys.com/Built-to-Love---Review.html.

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