In today’s hyper‑competitive world, many leading brands are shifting from focusing primarily on the rational aspects of a product to deliberately shaping an emotional experience. In a conversation with McKinsey, Chip Wade, CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, distills this evolution into a single guiding question for every interaction between a company and a customer: “How many new memories did we create?” This increasing focus on memory‑making has led to an ever more demanding audience—one actively searching for its next meaningful intangible or tangible experience.
As intangible experiences evolve to deliver deeper emotional resonance, concerts now offer soundcheck access or artist meet‑and‑greets, while museum visits can take place after hours in small groups guided by curators. And in parallel with this amplification of the intangible, today’s consumers are gravitating toward tangible products that feel almost artisanal. In an economy where everything is becoming digitized, they’resending a clear signal: the more virtual life becomes, the more people value the physical and the handcrafted.
This helps explain why the global handicrafts market—worth $900 billion in 2024 and growing at nearly 9% annually—is booming. It’s not nostalgia; it’s consumers seeking products that carry emotional weight, cultural meaning, and human touch.
This craving for tactile, crafted objects isn’t limited to traditional handicrafts—it’s reshaping the world of books too. The recent wave of premium hardback editions shows how strongly readers gravitate toward art‑driven, sensory design. Consider the MinaLima‑designed Harry Potter editions: each volume is produced with rich full‑color illustrations, interactive paper‑engineered elements, and layered visual storytelling, transforming reading into a physical experience rather than a screen‑based one. These editions include fold‑out Hogwarts letters, pop‑up scenes, and multi‑layered artwork, echoing the craft‑heavy printing traditions of classic illustrated literature.
In an era when most reading happens on glowing rectangles, these books thrive precisely because they feel made—beautiful objects as much as stories.
The new luxury is not just experiences; it’s experiences you can feel.
As this personal touch intensifies, so does profitability across industries—from airlines to e‑commerce platforms to automotive brands. McKinsey finds that companies excelling at personalization generate 40% more revenue from these activities than their average competitors. In financial services, institutions employing advanced personalization strategies see 15%–20% higher revenue and a 10%–30% reduction in customer acquisition costs, underscoring the commercial power of emotional resonance.
Zooming in on payments, this shift becomes even more apparent. Paying with a plastic card or smartphone is often a purely functional transaction—efficient, but forgettable. But paying with a metal card creates something entirely different: a psychological cue (“I have a rare card not everyone has”), an emotional signal (“My bank values me”), and a sensory layer (“I see a beautiful card, feel its weight, and hear its sound when tapped”).
Together, these elements transform an everyday action into a moment—creating new payment memories every time the card is used.
