The auto manufacturer, Hyundai, is coming out with a new crossover vehicle, the Kona N.
The N in Kona N bears particular significance — only Hyundai’s most sporty cars have N at the end of their name (you can read more about it here).
An exciting feature that the Kona N will come with is a mode called “N Grin Shift”, which gives you 10 extra horsepower for 20 seconds.
When I read about this feature this morning, I immediately wondered to myself: what is it about this feature that makes it so compelling?
More specifically, I wondered:
- Would it be equally enjoyable to have the extra 10 horsepower all the time? Or would the excitement of having more power quickly dissipate as we became accustomed to it?
- Is there something special about having temporary access to just a little more power than what you’re used to having?
Maybe there are mechanical limitations that prevented the engineers from giving you the extra 10 horsepower all the time.
Maybe.
I contend that the more likely case is that the product design and engineering teams knew that temporarily offering more power would allow drivers to repeatedly trigger the sense of delight — the “grin” in “N Grin Shift” — that comes from having something they’re not accustomed to having.
This philosophy of value creation isn’t new: it’s why stores offer limited-time discounts, it’s why we travel. It has similar underpinnings as the advice “underpromise and overdeliver”.
In practice the recipe for delight is just that — a recipe: understand what your customer expects and then offer them access to a little bit more value on top of that.