The Emotional connection and moment of truth

Moment of Truth, Moment of Truth. This phrase if often used to describe the moment that someone considers your product or services in a honest genuine way. Its the moment they feel comfortable and emotionally involved to take the next step.

It’s not the moment of Truth that matters most is all the things that lead up to that moment. Its all the little ways they have convinced themselves along that journey that do matter. The only emotional connection does not only happen at the moment of truth but it’s conceivable that emotions are involved; they can happen earlier and motivate the consumer to continue down the path. At what point does an emotional connection actually occur? How does that emotional connection evolve as the consumer end at a moment of truth? How can emotional connections be measured? Like all emotions does they ebb and flow with circumstances or is there emotional memory?

There are folks like Danny Brown that are calling this marketing that is driven by emotions, Emotional Marketing. It’s marketing that has messaging that builds your ego and support your self-esteem; makes you feel bolder, smarter, brighter.

This type of marketing for a long time, and we have built a nation on selling peope hopes, and dreams. Imagine the old car commercials, promising a new suburban lifestyle free of any worry; or care. We all buy-in, we can’t help it as a consumer society–but, what is missing, why do marketers needs to cling on to new terms? Because they are trying to put there finger on that something to make the consumer buy.

We can all agree that emotions are a big part of the journey, but how big are they and how important are they to the final experience? How important are emotions in the innovation process and how responsible are marketers in bring that emotion into the internal processes?

Turning Innovation EQ into Emotional dollars

Are you staring at your company and wondering why it’s not more valuable? Are you staring at your stock price and wondering why it never goes in the direction you like or up as far as you want to retire? Do you wonder why every time you do something great that success is not instant?

Innovation demands high levels of emotional intelligence, and collectives to have a high Emotional Quotient. Why? In a social world where understanding the differences between emotional states, personalities and relationships matter to how well a innovative concept is adapted, consumed, and reconsumed.

Determining EQ’s for both employees and for customers provides creators and marketers the best chance for ensuring innovation becomes a string of emotions.

Learn more about contagious emotions | Explore how to test a products emotional impact

The Futurist vs Visionary

On the surface the Futurist and visionary may appear to be the same. In fact they are very different sides of the same coin. To have vision requires some ability to see into the future and a futurist must also have vision. However, the differences are distinct when you are able to explore the context of the visionary and the context in which the futurist operates.

So imagine you asked the visionary to provide perspective on a new market, they might go on and on about how they can see the market players dissolving, new technology taking over old technology; they might tell you that in 2 years people will stop using bar soap and start using liquid soap instead.

Then take the futurist, they might tell you that new market does not matter, because the future they see: that market will not exist, the players in it will be irrelevant and, there will be something even more powerful to be part of that considers a new universal approach that radically  changes how life is. The futurist might take all things in context, and not just isolate their thinking against a singular construct.

Was Steve Jobs a visionary or a futurist? Perhaps it’s required to be a visionary first before you can evolve into a futurist.

Big company innovation vs small company innovation

It’s often reported that big companies have an advantage with respect to innovation; they have plenty of access to capital, machines, and people. However, there are many examples where big companies often fall to small companies that take innovative approaches towards addressing a markets existing need, emerging need and latent needs. Then, why is it that big companies often miss big opportunities. There is plenty of research in terms of how corporate culture can depress creativity or public investors are too short sighted on profilts alone to anticipate the next big thing. Often we see CEO’s grapple with keeping all his/her stakeholders happy while still making wise future looking investments.

The nature of small companies forces creativity because these entities are merely trying to survive so they are operating from a disadvantaged position. Often the types of emotions and creativity that go into a said product or service can be distinctly different. Imagine in a small company small teams can collaborate quickly; and in these scenarios they can be laser focused on specifically what outcomes they are driving towards. And, in many instances they can operate with the customer close by to get instant feedback.

But, given all these obvious differences and research that excuse big companies from missing the mark and giving small companies a default creative advantage, what really is at play. I believe you have to investigate further into what happens at the group level and how certain players can enforce a creative process, ensure the emotion intent is emulsified, and others indoctrinate and steep themselves in the innovation fully. What markers throughout the ideation and creative processes are indicative of success? Do big companies consistently have the right ideas but miss solidifying their emotional intent? Does process really kill innovation or does it codify it so it can reproduce easily? Is there a such thing as too-many-chefs-in-the-kitchen and does that ruin the meal? Is it really simply that small companies cant afford more chefs to spoil it?

We will attempt to investigate this further and isolate examples where protecting the emotional intent within the creative process is something big and small companies can do to get better at innovation.

Progress in Context

Innovation within context provides the greatest opportunity for progress to occur, but deciphering Wikipedia’s most recent socially generated definition of Innovation, does provide a starting point to have this discussion, and provide logical discourse.

Let’s begin with:

Source Wikipedia: Innovation is the development of new customers value through solutions that meet new needs, inarticulate needs, or old customer and market needs in new ways.

This is accomplished through different or more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments, and society.

Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.

Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better.