Recently, there's been a lot of chat in UK advertising circles about behavioural economics - a field which combines psychology, philosophy and economics in order to understand how people make decisions. One of its tenets is that because value is subjective, intangible value IS real value. This means simple changes to experience can affect the way we make choices.
The important intangible value that I'm going to talk to you about today is FUN.
Designers like Philippe Starck have long known about the value of fun. After all, why would you part with £40 for an Alessi lemon juicer, unless it was shaped like a space rocket?
Now, Volkswagen have sprung up with a nice little site, espousing "the fun theory" as a way to encourage good behaviour in the world at large, from encouraging people to walk up the stairs to making a game out of doing the recycling.
As a marketing professional, I'm not quite sure how all this fits in with Volkswagen just yet (car-based fun theories seem strangly lacking at the moment). As a human being, however, seeing brands trying to make the world a better place makes me happy - and if VW are lucky, a bit of that extra, intangible happiness value might just rub off on them.
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