Emotional Economy: The Next Trillion-Dollar Premium Track

Philip Kotler, the “Father of Modern Marketing,” once said: “The future marketing battlefield will not be about product features, but about emotional resonance with consumers.”

This statement has been perfectly validated in today’s emotional economy. Whether it’s Haidilao or Pangdonglai, whether it’s Pop Mart or Lao Pu Gold, people are no longer paying for what they “need,” but emptying their wallets for what they “feel.”

Shanghai’s Jellycat CAFÉ business is booming. I read the comments below the news and excerpted two:

“People like me need this kind of atmosphere and emotional value. Otherwise, living the same boring life day after day is really devastating.”

“This world has finally gone crazy in the way I wanted it to.”

Going to Haidilao is not because the beef tripe is fresher, but to enjoy a free manicure service.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of the emotional economy. Emotions are no longer ethereal psychological fluctuations, but have become the “new oil” that is quantified by algorithms, packaged by commerce, and pursued by capital.

I. The Underlying Logic of Emotional Economy: Decoding Human Nature

1. Consumption as Therapy

Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has a famous “Peak-End Rule”: people’s memory of experiences is determined by the peak and end values.

TikTok captures users’ attention in the first 3 seconds, short dramas design an emotional thrill every 15 seconds, and live streaming creates tension with “3, 2, 1, link up”… Essentially, they are all manipulating the rhythm of dopamine secretion.

Like a certain escape room’s “Scold the Boss” themed room, where players vent their frustrations on NPCs and receive a “termination notice,” this extreme emotional experience allows players to release emotions while merchants earn money.

When white-collar workers are willing to pay for “wake-up scolding services,” it’s essentially using others’ voices to complete self-criticism; when “virtual hug” services become bestsellers, it’s actually compensation for the skin hunger of lonely people.

2. Loneliness Premium

Experts point out that atomized interpersonal relationships have spawned a virtual companionship economy. When young people call AI chatbots their “electronic best friends” and call virtual idols “wives,” they are essentially paying for loneliness.

Generation Z is willing to pay for purely symbolic consumption like “good luck spray,” “metaphysical bracelets,” and “Einstein’s brain.” They’re “not buying products, but a psychological sense of security.”

3. Social Currency

My child is from Generation Alpha, and recently asked me to buy her a gourd. When I asked why, she said it was for “playing with” because all her classmates are doing it, and she also asked me to buy her cultural relic maintenance wax.

Walking into the child’s room, in the small space, there are various emotion-related items: stress-relief squeeze toys, badges, and various trendy figurines. Classmates also share and gift these items, making emotional consumer goods gradually become social currency for Generation Z.

II. Innovation Codes for the Trillion-Dollar Track

1. From Homophone Memes to Cultural IP

Luckin collaborated with “The Story of Rose” to launch Rose Latte, with purchases including Huang Yimei’s keychain and Fairy Sister’s paper bag; Pechoin signed Xin Zhilei and had huge sales on Double Eleven, capitalizing heavily on the “Blossoms Shanghai” dividend.

Consumers aren’t buying coffee or Pechoin, just like “what I’m smoking isn’t cigarettes, it’s loneliness.”

Another form of business is adding cultural symbols to products. Sales figures don’t lie—fruits labeled with “No Anxiety Green,” “Salary Doubling,” and “Berry No Worries” clearly sell better.

2. Scene Revolution

Half a month ago, I accompanied my child to an escape room, mildly scary. The immersive experience brought by lighting, scenes, music, and NPCs was both frightening and thrilling.

Last Chinese New Year, I took my child to Universal Studios. A simple Slytherin keychain costs dozens of yuan, a Slytherin mug costs 100+, and a magic wand costs three to four hundred. These items have long been idle, but the excitement and immersion at the time remain in memory, becoming precious fragments worth treasuring in time.

In today’s increasingly abundant material life, people of the new era are different from the older generation. When shopping, they consider not practicality but the emotional value and emotional experience behind it.

III. “Hidden Concerns” Behind Prosperity

1. Addictive Consumption Traps

A colleague shared with me that his child spends several thousand yuan on blind boxes every year. A limited edition blind box might be hyped up to tens of thousands of yuan, and some teenagers even develop “box-opening anxiety.” This Skinner box-style random reward mechanism is creating new types of consumer dependency.

2. Emotional Economy Dissolving Real Connections

Today, customized blessing messages have replaced handwritten letters, express gifts mask the warmth of face-to-face conversations, and even parent-child interactions are replaced by standardized “check-in projects.”

The emotional economy has constructed a closed loop of instant gratification happiness, significantly dissolving humanity’s most precious emotional connections.

The tacit understanding that should grow through shared experiences and the comprehension that should settle through deep communication are being replaced by “emotional consumption” with superficial emotional fast food.

The explosion of the emotional economy validates management expert Peter Drucker’s insight: the ultimate mission of enterprises is to create and satisfy needs. When this need becomes “being understood,” business also has warmth. But in the process of consuming emotions, we may increasingly discover—technology can never replace the warmth of a real embrace, and algorithms ultimately cannot calculate the depth of the human heart.

End of article.