Beyond Seiko. Defining emotional technology.

There isn't a definition for emotional technology, despite it being used as a band name and some scant references to the term in post-modern discourse.

Yet in 2007 Japanese watchmaker Seiko began referring to its watches as using emotional technology. Since then press releases and advertising clips from the company have described how:

SEIKO believes that the wristwatch is, above all, an intimate accessory. The best watches live in harmony, and interact, with the wearer and its functions offer the user a re-assuring and emotionally satisfying bond.

SEIKO's technological development is focused on the creation of 'emotional technologies'. Emotional technology creates the interaction between the wearer and the product.

From here it’s easy to deconstruct a definition from Seiko's text, set it within a meaningful context and even go beyond. First, technology is the product, not the mechanical or electronic drivers used to build or drive it. Second, emotional technology is defined by the creation of emotional intimacy between a user and the technology. Finally, this is measured by the level of comfort and efficacy derived from the technology and from the experience of closeness with it. For Seiko or any other technology brand, this occurs on between user and brand as well as on a collective basis.

Intimate engagement with technology is gauged by both degree of closeness and time. Technology needs to meet user expectations across the full span of a relationship, not just at purchase. Apple’s high rate of product innovation is not only the commercial imperative of in-built obsolescence but also the emotional commitment by users to its product. There is no better confirmation than hysteria surrounding the iPhone release or the opening of a new Apple Store (see below). Each demonstrate how Apple has a much better understanding of its users than most technology makers (think Sony’s Walkman failure and more recently, Motorola’s struggles) and has constructed this with real purpose.

The level of association between user and technology requires constant and increasingly intimate communication. Overt and expressive it includes visual branding, general advertising, promotion and communication. It also occurs by non-direct forms via personal proximity, audio and kinetic branding and technology design. While most technology branding does the former well and most do some form of the latter - the visual ubiquity of Apple’s white iPod headset, audio branding by Sony Ericsson or the distinctive design of a Dyson, all come to mind - few are exemplary in generating a high degree of intimacy.

Like all good relationships the success or failure of an emotional technology is affected by its nature, trust and the culture in which it operates. Mobile phones are more able to build trust and therefore a higher degree of intimacy than a washing machine, simply because the level, degree and type of relationship is different. Culturally, as Seiko notes, this "reassuring and emotionally satisfying bond" with a mobile phone is also going to be different for the 14 year old Gothic Lolita in Tokyo and the Gossip Girl fan in Manhattan. For each the basis of a more intimate engagement is determined by both usage and degree of customisation.

Importantly, emotional technologies need to ensure brand and product attributes are clearly defined, understood and shared. To see this is linked to brand success take a look at Saatchi’s Love Marks top 50. Without spelling out the obvious, the idiosyncrasy of this list is almost wholly dependent on the degree of intimacy and identification people feel between themselves and brands. Apple, the iPod and Google all occupy top 10 positions, while the Technology top 50 has Sony, TiVo and Sonar top 10 followed by Atari, Nokia, Nintendo, Canon, Blackberry and Nikon.

Seiko, for all its investment in its ownership of "emotional technology” is yet to make the list. Ironically it’s an old technology watch brand that does. No surprises, its Rolex.


This is an alternative version of a blog which originally appeared in Marketing Magazine on November 10. http://www.marketingmag.com.au/blogs

See this is the future of television. So why haven't the networks seen it?

Three events in the past two weeks have convinced me traditional television and traditional television viewing is being e radically transformed.

On Friday German publishing giant Axel Springer and Dutch consumer electronics producer Philips announced they had developed a system that will make it possible for television viewers to create personalized channels from their favorite TV and Internet video content.

And last Tuesday Sony, along with six of the biggest US cable operators Comcast Corp, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems Corp and Bright House Networks, signed a deal that enables US consumers buy digital televisions that can receive a cable service without a set-top box.

Finally, last week a syndicate of Japan's largest electronics manufacturers announced that it may have reached agreement on a standard for a new internet television and new set, which will let users browse websites and watch streaming programs at the touch of a remote control, could be on sale as early as March 2008.

In each case, the opportunity was clear to all but those in what is now called "heritage media". Traditional network based and free-to-air television is being increasingly forced into a wider choice set that sees the television screen as a portal for all content and interactivity - both linear and non-linear - global, national and local.

Add to this increasingly expanding opportunities for delivering content to mobile, laptop and gaming devices, and you can see why brand owners and television network owners are fast becoming small fish.

The new Phillips software-based system, called TV Digital Personal, will be available on Philips television sets in Europe in time for Christmas. It will also be available for free download onto personal computers and can be used on digital video recorders and mobile devices.

TV Digital Personal is based on Springer's digital TV guide, so in effect another walled garden with yet another EPG. The software called APRICO is not unlike TIVO and automatically learns viewing preferences and suggests additional programming based on what has already been chosen by the viewer enabling the viewer to build their own channel.

Advertising could possibly be microtargetted according to viewer selections with an opt out permissions. This will be in addition to the regular TV commercials already embedded in programs.

The Sony announcement establishes a new US technological standard to be adopted by 2009 that will enable a new generation of TVs to include video-on-demand, digital video recording, interactive programming guides and other services.

By adopting a Java-based application called tru2way as a US interactive standard, it will enable the adoption of new "plug-and-play" interactive devices that can be used with TV sets.

The technology will also make it easier for consumers to receive the full range of cable-based services on other devices such as laptops, MP3 players, and cell phones.

Japan's new internet television is the brainchild of the TV Portal Service Corporation founded in July 2007 by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Sony Corp., Sharp Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd, set up a TV Portal Service with So-net Entertainment Corp., a Sony-affiliated Internet service provider and shareholder and is backed by the Japanese Government.

The companies aim to establish a global standard for the service and its portal, operating under the name acTVila, connects TV users free of charge to various web sites that provide consumer-oriented services, such as news and shopping.

From July Sharp will also sell TVs with an additional internet portal that offers access to Yahoo! Japan - the country's most popular website - as well as digitized print magazines and high definition video-on-demand.

In the end all of these announcements are still announcements but what they signal is indefatigable - television screens can no longer be viewed as just technology but as the conduit for an increasingly complex dialogue between media and content owners, producers, users, viewers, technology makers, brand owners and their agencies. And, if all the talk is right, the traditional television industry is showing all the signs of being undone by technology and its users just as the music industry was late last century.