Needless to say, it’s very important for brands to understand the emotion of its consumers. As every psychologist agrees that emotions play a huge role in consumer purchasing behavior.
In today’s crowded market space, customers have options and I mean lots of options in most cases.
So, your business needs to stand out from the pack.
Thus all marketers want to strike an emotional chord with consumers, which is why so often we see ads with children and puppies or commercials where the adult son returns home to surprise mom on her birthday. The general consensus is, though fleeting and situational, the emotions these communications elicit drive consumer behavior.
Customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand or category are more valuable than those who are simply satisfied. For instance, they spend up to 2x or more with their preferred retailers, and have, on average, 306 percent higher lifetime value. They’ll stay with a brand an average of 5.1 years (compared to 3.4 years of satisfied customers), and recommend brands at much higher rates (30.2 percent vs. 7.6 percent).
Marketers and agencies approach the concept of emotions with broad brushstrokes when precision is required. As people, we feel a wide variety of emotions, all of which are tied to how our brains are wired. There’s not just a single emotion that drives customer loyalty, prompts a consumer to purchase another product, or forward information about a brand to a friend. In fact, there’s a whole taxonomy of emotions, and marketers can move the needle for their companies once they know which ones drive the exact behavior desired.
What are the implications of these insights to marketers? First, emotional connection is a strong motivator of behavior because consumers will connect their values, desires or aspirations to a brand or product category. These connections often reside in the unconscious and are not overtly acknowledged. And because they’re predictive and consistent, leveraging them is the most effective long-term strategy for retailers.
For instance, just about every retailer has a loyalty program, and most offer an incentive to entice sign-ups. How many will never use the program or visit the retailer again once they’ve benefited from that one-time promotion?
Now contrast this with a loyalty program in which new members are recruited based on an underlying set of emotions rather than a one-time deal. Such consumers will have a lower acquisition cost and are likely to have a higher lifetime value for your brand.
The value of an emotional connection isn’t theoretical; it’s quantifiable. It is proven that emotionally connected customers spend more, stay with brands longer, and recommend them at higher rates. And because these emotions are consistent and predictable, marketers can use them as a foundation to develop sustainable customer acquisition and retention strategies.
This Commercial of Robi Axiata can be a good example of emotional marketing. Incidents of rape and harassment in public transport happening almost every day around us are well known to us and undoubtedly this is a point in which each and every conscious citizen can connect to. So, this commercial shows the insecurity and uncertainty that a woman goes through while travelling by a public bus alone and no wonder mass people are appreciating this commercial as they can highly connect to such emotion.
Vision published this commercial in their anti-cybercrime series in February 2019. The alarming growth of cyber crimes in our country is something that we all know. Context of this commercial is something similar to that. We share personal stuff of someone else over social media or internet without being aware that we are violating someones right to privacy and committing cybercrime. This realization hits us when someone close or dear to us becomes the victim of such cybercrime. To me- this commercial hits to an emotional point that consumers can connect to.
However, promotion of brands through social awareness campaigns help consumers more to connect with the brand.
This commercial of Fresh Cement shows how little appreciation/recognition can make a person happy that can’t be bought with money. This is another example of emotional marketing that this commercial pulled off so perfectly. I believe this sort of marketing makes a consumer feel secure and comfortable and gives a sense of belonging thus a consumer or people feel like they are being supported and the brand knows their struggles.
Emotional branding/ marketing takes strategy. To evoke the emotion that moves your audience, you need to have a firm grasp of your buyer personas.
Download this free template to find out your ideal buyer persona.
