Podcast explores attachments to products and brands

Kathryn LaTour

“Product Love,” a new episode of the “What Makes Us Human” podcast series, explores why consumers feel love for certain products or brands.

The podcast’s third season – “What Do We Know about Love?” – showcases new thinking across academic disciplines about the relationship between humans and love.

“As it turns out, the most loved product is not the one with the most quality features... . The key missing ingredient in our usual approach is that it overlooks the absolutely crucial role of emotion,” Kathryn LaTour, the Banfi Vintners Professor of Wine Education and Management in the School of Hotel Administration, SC Johnson College of Business, says in the podcast.

LaTour is an expert in marketing hedonic experiences, with a particular focus on wine and gambling and the complexity of human memory. Her research takes a consumer-psychology perspective to how marketers should approach branding, experience design, communications and loyalty programs. She uses experimental designs and in-depth interview techniques to better understand consumer behavior, fusing macro cultural and micro psychological dimensions to her research.

“What Makes Us Human” podcasts are available for download on iTunes and SoundCloud and for streaming on the A&S humanities page, where text versions of the essays are also posted. The series is produced by the College of Arts and Sciences in collaboration with the Cornell Broadcast Studios and features audio essays written and recorded by Cornell faculty.

- Linda B. Glaser

Media Contact

Media Relations Office