Here is some of my coverage of the 2012 Future Insights Live conference in Las Vegas where I was reporting for Dice and Dice News.
“Emotion is a part of business,” said Brian Wong (@brian_wong), the 21-year-old CEO of Kiip, a company that provides physical real-world and virtual goods awards for achieving virtual goals in video games.
Wong started a business that’s connected to emotional moments. As a result, he learned that emotion is a core part of business.
“In moments of joy and happiness, you can reach someone,” said Wong. “When it’s an earned feeling, and you tie it to a reward, you have a stronger affinity towards it.”
In Wong’s presentation “Beyond Attention: Emotion,” at Future Insights Live in Las Vegas he walked through ten ways to reach your audience beyond just attention.
1. Moments instead of touch points:
You’re looking to create a product that actually enhances the user’s life. Apple is at the apex of this. They show this in all of their advertising. What does it look like when people are using our product? What do they look like? Do they smile? With Kiip, Wong found that game achievements were “moments.” Wong points out that you’ll see Coke imagery at ballparks because they want their image to be there when you’re happy watching your team win.
2. Play:
Can you bring this element to your product or service? Emotion comes out of play. To capitalize on play, Wong suggests these three layers:
- Action layer: Moments
- Achievement layer: Acknowledgement and validation
- Rewards layer: Serendipity, gifts, and rewards
3. Serendipity:
Things that happen around you that are pleasantly surprising. You didn’t need to call on it, but it was useful to you and it made you happy. Serendipity also includes the notion of surprise and delight. The rewards Kiip gives out are very serendipitous. Kiip rewards provide a piece of unexpected value. How loyal are your customers to interacting with your product? How often are they creating moments?
4. Acknowledging and validating:
We like to be recognized for our actions. A retweet, a like, or a comment are all examples of this.
5. Choice:
This is really perceived, not actual, choice. This can take the form of smart customization, social serendipity, “algorithms” and recommendations, perceived care and personality, and perceived effort.
6. Gifts and rewards:
For example, when you send out your first mail campaign with MailChimp you get a free t-shirt. It’s a nice unexpected gift.
7. Humanizing your process:
When you love a brand you’re much more forgiving when they screw up. The most explicit form of this is through mascots.
8. Inception:
The way you connect with a customer is you come to a point where they come up with a solution. If there’s a way they can come up with the idea on their own accord, that’s excellent.
9. Build a story:
Just describe what happened in real life. It’s really not that hard to do. You want customers to be able to tell stories with your product.
10. Feel or die:
You must have feeling.
Stock photo of boy playing a driving game from Big Stock Photo.
