How to Generate a Feel-Good Experience
Adding a specific think-and-feel experience to a product for customers or an internal service for employees is one way to use cognitive design to differentiate an offering. You provide the same core functionality as a competitor but you differentiate by delivering it in a way that meets a deeply felt psychological need. For example, a product or service that makes a donation to a worthy cause when purchased. That delivers a small but potent “feel-good” by doing good experience for the shopper.
According to The Integer Group, how you make the donation can have a big impact. In a recent research study they found:
“When choosing between two brands that benefit a cause, 43 percent of women say they choose the brand that donates with every purchase over a brand that donates a set amount.”
They also found that causes with an emotional message devoted to disease prevention generated a more intense feel-good for women.
These psychographic findings have clear implications for cognitive designers working in product and service innovation.
