"Brands that Touch" and anthropology of consumption: towards an understanding of how to design pleasurable products

This article focuses on "Brands that touch", or people's relationship with brands that incorporate meaningful experiences and evoke positive feelings. It views brands as synonymous with their products. It views, also, the act of choosing and using a product as a process of symbolic exchange and intends to bridge the fields of "Design & Emotion" and Anthropology of Consumption. Therefore, it presents some reflections based on personal stories about "brands that touch" gathered from interviews and conversations with people from different walks of life and on classic writings on theory of Anthropology of Consumption and some of the pioneering authors in the field such as Mary Douglas, Lévi-Strauss, among others. This article's central idea is that if we are to design pleasurable products, we must listen to users and understand the essence and content of a brand that touches them.