Cognitive Design

Cognitive design is the preferred innovation method when psychological impact plays a central role in value creation. This is clearly the case in entertainment, advertising and adventure travel and we wish it where the case in leadership, healthcare and education.  But consider the case, as they do in the article Bottling Customer Experience, where competing products are all functionally similar. In such a case the only way to differentiate is through psychological impact.  While there are many ways to have such an impact it usually entails authentically touching the heart and accelerating the mind by carefully crafting attributes to produce specific cognitive (intellectual), emotional, motivational and volitional states.   The article discussed how Method Products added emotional attributes to common household cleaning products to rapidly gain $200M in market share.  While a great case to study they make a broader point:

“Most companies underestimate the power of emotional differentiation, focusing instead on functional differentiation. Rational, fact-based, “hard” attributes always play well in boardrooms and focus groups, but they don’t reflect the real way consumers think and act. Consumer loyalty is the result of a brand’s ability to stand out on both functional and emotional attributes. Sure, most consumers consider functional attributes more important than emotional ones, but what if all your competitors have the same functional attributes? “

The article stresses that emotions are rooted in sensory experience.  Features that shape what we see, smell, hear, taste and touch by how they trigger our values, mental models, metaphors and cognitive biases hold the key to creating emotional differentiation. That is what cognitive design is all about.