Built To Love: Creating Products That Captivate Customers by Peter Boatwright & Jonathan Cagan - Book review

Built to Love

Creating Products That Captivate Customers

By: Peter Boatwright, Jonathan Cagan

Published: September 5, 2010
Format: Hardcover, 216 pages
ISBN-10: 1605096989
ISBN-13: 978-1605096988
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers






"In today's marketplace, there is a new kind of leading company. These leaders do not just produce good products. They produce captivating products that energize the marketplace and set the standard for what customers want and expect", write associate professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business, with an appointment in Mechanical Engineering, Peter Boatwright, and the George Tallman and Florence Barrett Ladd Professor in Mechanical Engineering, with appointments in the School of Design and Computer Science, at Carnegie Mellon University, Jonathan Cagan, in their brilliant and groundbreaking book Built to Love: Creating Products That Captivate Customers. The authors describe how the difference between an ordinary product and a product that captivates and energizes customers is emotion.



Peter Boatwright (photo left) and Jonathan Cagan understand the crucial role that emotions play in all people. Human emotions become attached to products that excite and move them from the ordinary to the extraordinary in life. Given the importance of emotions to people, the authors point to the surprising lack of emotional consideration given to product development. The role of emotions has long been recognized in advertising and marketing, with the emotional aspect of the product added on at the back end of the product development cycle. The authors recommend a fundamental change in the product design process. They suggest transforming the entire product development cycle to build emotional consideration into the product design from the very beginning of the process.



Jonathan Cagan (photo left) and Peter Boatwright describe how excited customers get when they use a product that energizes their emotions. Not only do they enjoy the product themselves, but they share the experience widely with everyone they know. The authors offer the explanation that the real difference in products goes far beyond mere technological or usage variations. The best products, marketed by the industry leaders in the category, captivate the purchaser, with both the product performance and the way it makes the user feel. The authors propose that products offer, often unknown to both the customer and the company, an emotional element that fulfills a need in a person's life. To achieve this deep emotional connection between the product and its user, the product must include emotional values that resonate with the customer. To gain this raw and passionate impact, the emotional values must be integrated into all aspects of the product design from the very conception of the idea. This holistic approach to emotional design forms the crux of a product being built to love.

For me, the power of the book is how Peter Boatwright and Jonathan Cagan combine the theory of understanding the powerful role played by emotions in product design, with the practical steps necessary to integrate emotions into the overall design process. By taking a holistic approach to the relationship between emotions and products, the authors enter into an under researched and seldom considered area of design psychology. Not only are emotions central to what it means to be human, those same emotions can be invoked by products. Emotional values can be transferred to products as well. For the authors, this complex interaction between product and user is critical for designers to understand. In a globalized marketplace, where even the best and most popular products risk falling into the commodity category, the ability to develop a captivating product can mean the very survival of a company.

With so little attention paid to the emotional aspect of design,outside of a few leading companies, the potential for expanded emotion based product opportunities is unlimited. the authors identify the difference between supported emotions, that are invoked by a captivating design, and associated emotions that are derived from continued enjoyment of the product. With the addition of emotional consideration into the engineering and design of products, a company will build in a deep response of supported and associated emotions. By striking this deep seated chord in customers, products can be constructed with emotional building blocks as overall values. This book addresses a little understood, and seldom considered aspect of design. Instead of relying only upon rationality and logic, this book is a guide toward the integration of emotions as the next frontier in engineering and design.

I highly recommend the revolutionary and insightful book Built to Love: Creating Products That Captivate Customers by Jonathan Cagan and Peter Boatwright, to any business people who are serious about understanding the deep seated emotional relationship that exists between people and the products they buy and use. Going well past the well traveled ground of emotions in marketing and advertising, the authors drill more deeply into the product itself. They recommend, and provide the tools and techniques necessary, to transform design to include emotions as a central focus throughout the entire process.

Read the essential and important book Built to Love: Creating Products That Captivate Customers by Peter Boatwright and Jonathan Cagan, and discover the crucial importance of the role emotions play with products and their usage. By incorporating emotional values into product design and engineering, your products will create a legion of fanatical evangelists who will spread the word about your products being built to love.

Tags: Built to Love: Creating Products That Captivate Customers, Peter Boatwright, Jonathan Cagan, enhanced product design, business book reviews.