Aesthetic Intelligence

August 19, 2019
Brown, former chairman of the luxury behemoth LVMH, offers a thin meditation on sensorial pleasure and the business opportunities it provides. The book contains lessons from her Harvard Business School course “The Business of Aesthetics,” which teaches how to use an understanding of aesthetics to win over customers. Tactics include “enhancing attunement,” “translating emotional reactions,” “articulating aesthetic ideals,” and “curating inputs and ideals.” In layperson’s terms, this is about finding a personal style for one’s product or service, while managing the sometimes conflicting interests of commerce and creativity. Brown talks at some length about how aesthetic intelligence (“the other AI”) can inform business strategy, offering the negative example of Google Glass—which failed, despite state-of-the-art-technology, because it made users feel awkward—and the positive one of Target, which has managed to compete against Walmart by creating a “cheap-chic” message. She argues that, in an era of increasing automation and a correspondingly stronger yearning among consumers for emotional connection, businesspeople should tap into aesthetics, “the pleasure we... derive from perceiving an object of experience through our senses.” This descriptor—and the text itself—is a lot of words to express the concept that people like pretty things, making for a book which is more filler than help. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency.

August 30, 2019

Brown (former chair, North American division of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton) has written on an unusual topic: the role aesthetics plays in business. Aesthetics in this context means values and styles. For example, Steve Jobs of Apple regularly dressed in a black mock turtleneck and jeans, and the company's iPhone is designed to be elegantly simple. Brown argues that developing an aesthetic awareness allows us to empathize more with the aesthetics of others, including potential customers. She believes aesthetics is important because people tend to make decisions (including consumer decisions) based on emotions. Brown asserts that while aesthetics is more obviously involved in consumer products and retail and restaurant services, it is by no means limited to them, offering numerous examples of how companies have used aesthetics well or badly. Brown believes aesthetics will play an even larger role in business in the future postconsumerist age, in which people will be looking for pleasing experiences rather than to acquire things. VERDICT Will appeal to those interested in the intersection of marketing and consumer behavior.--Shmuel Ben-Gad, Gelman Lib., George Washington Univ., Washington, DC

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