Emotions do sell innovation
These are excerpts from Part one of my book: Venus Genius: The Female Prescription for Innovation.
I experienced firsthand the impact of emotions in my personal life.
On a beautiful day in summer 2009, a friend of ours came to our home to buy a painting from my husband Patrick, a self-made artist and painter.
In 2007, Patrick was diagnosed with lung cancer and went through two very tough years between the surgery and the chemo treatment. Then one day he had enough physical and mental strength to grab the brush and paint again. Usually it takes Patrick weeks to complete a painting, but he did this one in a record time, with a sort of frenzy. He called it “Hymn to life.”
Our friend had already bought some paintings from Patrick. That day, we lined up around ten paintings in our living room. Usually he hesitated between several options, but that day, I hadn’t even finished lining up the canvases, he just blurted out: “This is the one I want”, pointing to Patrick’s latest work (he didn’t know it was the latest one and we didn’t share the title). This gave me chills and I asked: “Why this one, and why are you so sure?”. He answered: “Because it resonates with me, when I look at it I feel both despair and hope”…. Wow! Certainly a computer could have artistically and aesthetically done a similar work, but it could never have transferred onto the canvas the emotions Patrick felt when painting.
It illustrates the fact that, if we want innovation that sells, we need to tap into the human and emotional aspects.
I could confirm the power of emotions for innovation in my professional life.
At that time, I was working in Technology in a corporate environment. My team was trying to develop a shower gel that would rate high on emotional connection with consumers. It was a tough challenge as a shower gel is merely a commodity product to which consumers don’t develop a strong attachment. All the prototypes we developed rated high on functional benefits like lathering, cleansing and even pleasant scent but did not achieve the mark for emotional benefits. We had applied a consumer testing methodology that evaluated the emotional impact of the product: consumers rated prototypes by identifying to a facial expression or visual representing specific emotions like joy, disgust, freedom, stress. All our prototypes rated very low. The team was quite down.
Soon after, I attended an inter-company brainstorming session organized by a partner expert in sensory evaluation: Eurosyn. The objective of the workshop was to try to understand how to create emotional and multi-sensorial products and services. The guest speaker, an artist, started to sing. The song was about losing love because of a lack of communication and understanding. At the end we all had tears in our eyes, which felt awkward in this business environment. We asked him: “How is it that you created something that we were able to feel so deeply?” He looked at us and said: “Well, because I created that song with my emotions, I put all my emotions in it”.
And suddenly it hit me: in the corporate world we are trying to create the perfect functional product with all the appropriate features it should have. And then at the end when it’s ready we say, “Hey, now let’s connect with the consumers and put some emotions into it with advertising”.
But it doesn’t work like that.
Back at the office, I put a small multi-functional team together. It is interesting to note that the first volunteers to join were women. We talked about the emotions we wanted to spark in consumers: guilty pleasure, freedom, abandonment, sense of space. Then we spent full days all together to co-create prototypes with external experts and consumers. We started from the emotions we could feel when showering, making sure that all sensorial elements were supporting that emotion. The winning prototype got the highest emotional scores of the category in the test we had previously failed. The imagery was a Tuscany-inspired scene with vineyards, the rich texture evoked luxury, the color a profound burgundy and the smell was very gourmand. Needless to say, we celebrated.
The common theme between the two stories (personal and professional) is the need to create something starting from our emotions and our heart, otherwise it may not connect emotionally with consumers. This is especially important for the female market.
When basic needs like performance and convenience are met, the emotional connection makes the difference in the purchase decision.
Over the next weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts and stories from Part one of my book, Venus Genius in this article series. Venus Genius launched on December 7, 2020 on Amazon, here is the link to buy it: https://lnkd.in/dXbs_WK! If you want to connect, you can reach me here via email: contact@innoveve.com or connect with me on social: www.linkedin.com/in/fabienne-jacquet — https://www.facebook.com/innoveveLLC — @innoveveLLC.
