The role of emotion in product, service and business model design

Designers have become aware of the importance of creating strong emotional experiences intertwined with new tangible products for the past decade, however an increased interest from firms has emerged in developing new service and business models as complimentary forms of emotion-driven innovation. This interdisciplinary study draws from the psychological sciences – theory of emotion – and the management sciences – business model literature to introduce this new innovation agenda. The term visceral hedonic rhetoric (VHR) is defined as the properties of a product, (and in this paper service and business model extensions) that persuasively induce the pursuit of pleasure at an instinctual level of cognition. This research paper lays the foundation for VHR beyond a product setting, presenting the results from an empirical study where organizations explored the possibilities for VHR in the context of their business. The results found that firms currently believe VHR is perceived in either their product and/or services they provide. Implications suggest shifting perspective surrounding the use of VHR across a firm’s business model design in order to influence the outcomes of their product and/or service design, resulting in an overall stronger emotional connection with the customer.