Free Emotional Design by Donald A. Norman Page A

marketplace, where fashion can be as important as substance.
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    IN THE world of products, a brand is an identifying mark, the symbol that represents a company and its products. Particular brands produce an emotional response that draws the consumer toward the product or away from it. Brands have taken on the emotional representation.
They carry with them an emotional response that guides us toward a product or away from it. Sergio Zyman, former chief marketing officer of Coca-Cola, has said that “emotional branding is about building relationships; it is about giving a brand and a product long-term value.” But it is more: it involves the entire relationship of the product to the individual. Again, in Zyman’s words: “Emotional branding is based on that unique trust that is established with an audience. It elevates purchases based on need to the realm of desire. The commitment to a product or an institution, the pride we feel upon receiving a wonderful gift of a brand we love or having a positive shopping experience in an inspiring environment where someone knows our name or brings an unexpected gift of coffee—these feelings are at the core of Emotional Branding.”
    Some brands are simply informative, essentially naming a company or its product. But on the whole, the brand name is a symbol that represents one’s entire experience with a product and the company that produces it. Some brands represent quality and high prices. Some represent a focus upon service. Some represent value for money. And some brands stand for shoddy products, for indifferent service, or for inconvenience at best. And, of course, most brand names are meaningless, carrying no emotional power at all.
    Brands are all about emotions. And emotions are all about judgment. Brands are signifiers of our emotional responses, which is why they are so important in the world of commerce.
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    THIS CONCLUDES part I of the book: the basic tools of emotional design. Attractive things do work better—their attractiveness produces positive emotions, causing mental processes to be more creative, more tolerant of minor difficulties. The three levels of processing lead to three corresponding forms of design: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. Each plays a critical role in human behavior, each an equally critical role in the design, marketing, and use of products. Now it is time to explore how this knowledge is put to work.

PART TWO
    Design in Practice

    FIGURE 3.1
    Water bottles. The ones on the left and the right are clearly aimed to please at the visceral level; the middle one, well, it is efficient, it is inexpensive, and it works. The bottle on the left, for Perrier water, has become so well known that the shape and its green color are the brand. The bottle on the right is by TyNant, a bottle of such a pleasant shape coupled with its deep, cobalt blue color that people save the empty ones to use as vases. The clear plastic bottle is by Crystal Geyser: simple, utilitarian, effective when you need to carry water with you.
    (Author’s collection.)

CHAPTER THREE
    Three Levels of Design: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective
    I remember deciding to buy Apollinaris, a German mineral water, sim-
ply because I thought it would look so good on my shelves. As it
turned out, it was a very good water. But I think I would have bought
it even though it was not all that great.
The nice interplay between the bottle’s green and the label’s beige
and red as well as the font used for the brand turned this product of
mass consumption into a decoration accessory for your kitchen.
    â€”Hugues Belanger email, 2002
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    IT WAS LUNCHTIME. My friends and I were in downtown Chicago, and we decided to try Café des Architectes in the Sofitel Hotel. As we entered the bar area, a beautiful display greeted us: water bottles, the sort you can buy in a food market, set out as works of art.
The entire rear wall of the bar was