Advertising, by nature, is designed to evoke a feeling of emotion within the viewer, which often turns to persuasion. The emotional response to an ad has far greater influence on a consumer’s intent to buy a product than even the ad’s content does. In fact, ads with emotional pull have a 33% success rate.
Understanding what drives the consumers within your target audience will help a brand to leverage the desired motivators. Once these insights have been noted, creating a marketing strategy based on an emotional outcome is a step towards a successful campaign. For sentimental advertising, the most recurring themes are pride, love, unique achievement, loneliness, and friendship.
Emotive Responses
There are two types of emotive responses to an emotional advertisement: empathy and creativity. An empathetic response is when people emphasize with and feel closer to your brand, and a creative response occurs when the ad makes people feel your brand is imaginative and ahead of the game.
Speaking directly to the consumers within your target audience and capitalizing on the emotions they are likely to be feeling at a certain stage in their lives is a tried and true marketing strategy. Also, the content and aesthetics of the campaign should work together to create a cohesive message with the emotional appeal you hope to make.
Positive Feelings and Associations
The power of positivity is impactful, especially when it comes to advertising. Consistent positive associations, such as smiling or laughing people, will cause viewers to associate your brand with bringing joy or happiness.
A positive brand association is incorporated using these 3 key factors:
- Associate your brand with a story, either by creating a story or sponsoring a story that resonates with your brand’s core values.
- Make sure your ad appears in the right context, as you want people to be in the right state of mind when viewing the ad, so it has a better chance of being positively associated.
- Think quality over quantity. This way, you will target brand-related platforms and media websites, and they remain received in the right context. Protect your brand from sites that do not align with your values and prioritize transparency.
Not So Positive Feelings and Association
Brands don’t always aim to evoke happiness. An emotional ad may be created to incite strong feelings of anger, sadness, or anxiety. While these aren’t as serotonin generating as advertisements featuring happy imagery, they still trigger a reaction that is sure to stick within your mind, and at the least pique interest in a brand.
Emotional ads create a deeper and more visceral impression on the memory centers of the brain, and marketers are now measuring more cerebral responses using tools like facial coding, implicit response testing, eye tracking, and MRI.
American poet Maya Angelou is quoted as having said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Emotional engagement within advertising inspires success within any marketing campaign if done right through memorable feelings.
Connection to Celebration Marketing
At Celebration Marketing, our team uses the most current available consumer data to help businesses find their best customers. We communicate our clients’ offers to consumer households through both print and digital media. Not only that, but we also regularly measure our clients’ return on their marketing. Let us help you expand your brand through the power of advertising. Contact us to get started.
