Chapter 3: Wonderment and Magic

Watch Penn and Teller on stage or a magician at a birthday party. They leave one wondering, “How did that happen? That's impossible!”

Magic embodies entities with unexpected properties that lead to a feeling of wonderment. Magic transforms ordinary entities into charms. Customers in Customer Technology Environments (CTEs) are going to encounter charms and are going to be able create and manipulate them. Customer responses to charms are certainly of significant interest to Marketing Management, and these responses should drive how Marketing Managers direct the development of charms that will impact customers. Besides encountering charms, customers will feel wonderment. They will be immersed and feel present in environments in which they can act as magicians, creating charms, destroying, deleting, moving, transporting, and transforming events, objects, and agents. They can control charms in ways that are novel; by moving their heads, by using their gaze, by using controllers on different parts of their body, and yes, in the not too distant future by thoughts.