The Essence of Emotional Experiences

When people reminisce about their life, it’s often about the locations they visited, special events they attended, or extraordinary personal or historic occasions that they experienced. The reason we remember these happenings is because each of them invoked a strong emotional response. Most of us instinctively know that emotionally intense events are more memorable, but do we understand why?

In 2007, a group of Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators at Cold Spring Harbor and New York University identified the likely biological basis that proves emotions increase memory. Here’s an excerpt from their report: “A hormone released during emotional arousal ‘primes’ nerve cells to remember events by increasing their chemical sensitivity at sites where nerves rewire to form new memory circuits.”

It’s not surprising that emotionally charged memories can last a lifetime and can even become part of the folklore of our society. If you ask people if they remember the first moon landing or what they were doing on 9/11, you’ll get a detailed account of how they felt during these historic moments. If you ask what they were doing the day before the event, it’s doubtful that they will remember.

Books, advertising, and other marketing communication can also evoke strong emotional responses that promote memories. A well-written story can make you cry, laugh, or become angry. A single work of art or a photograph can produce unexpected feelings. A unique trade show exhibit or live event can leave you with a favorable memory of a product, service, and company.

Marketing communications can also become legendary. For example, in 1984, the “Where’s the Beef?” TV commercial made Clara Peller famous, and Wendy’s received enormous recognition. In 1999, a Budweiser campaign had millions of Americans asking “Wassup?” Of course, these examples are rare occurrences, but the good news for marketers is your work doesn’t have to become a legend to increase your company’s revenues. Making your brand memorable differentiates your product or service from your competitors’ and increases opportunities for sales.

It’s About Them

Prospects, clients, and consumers are more interested in themselves than they are in your brand, your company, or you. That’s not a surprise to seasoned marketers who are pros at creating benefit-oriented messages. Telling people how your offer benefits them is essential, but it’s not enough in our information-dense times. Every competitor does that. What’s needed is messaging that cuts through the clutter to create emotional responses.

To create compelling emotional experiences, you must have a deep understanding of your prospects’ interests, their lifestyles, and their “hot buttons.” For instance, in 1984, Wendy’s knew what burger lovers wanted, and rather than just tell people they had a burger with more meat, they chose to use humor to demonstrate that fact. Whichever media you use, it will be the empathy you display, the storytelling you offer, and the emotional impact of your creativity that will make the message memorable and effective.

The Medium Accelerates the Emotions

As I mentioned previously, all media can evoke emotions, but some make that easier. Our feelings are created by the stimulation of one or all of our senses. A single still or moving image (sight) can arouse emotions, but adding music (hearing) strengthens and even changes the emotional response. Just about every movie you have seen uses sound to intensify the emotion the director wants you to feel. The film Jaws is a great example.

Even the surroundings you’re in when you experience a film can influence your emotions. Sitting at home, where you feel safe, watching a horror movie on your computer or TV isn’t quite as scary as sitting in a theater with hundreds of strangers watching and reacting. If you viewed the “Wassup” commercial I mentioned earlier, you might have noticed the scene takes place in a home while the main character is watching football on TV. The Budweiser “Wassup” commercial was first aired during the Super Bowl. The commercial’s director was clearly trying to simulate, via visuals, the feeling of a familiar place and activity.

Various theme parks have attractions that use sight, sound, touch, smell, and surroundings to heighten your emotional response and envelop you in their fantasy. Trade shows and other types of live events are examples of marketing tools in which you can use all five senses to create emotions that surround consumers with a brand’s story. It’s the reason business events are a favored tool for introducing new products and generating both sales and meaningful leads.

Creating Emotions in a Digital Media World

Digital media has undoubtedly changed the way we market, but it shouldn’t shortchange the emotional value of our communications. All too often, using the misguided notion that social media is cheap, we see marketers posting irrelevant and boring messages and wondering why no one responds. Fortunately, others put as much creative energy into a simple post as they do a TV commercial.

Recent societal occurrences have created a renewed focus on both podcasts and video conferencing companies. Services such as Zoom, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Teams and many others are reaping the benefits of social distancing. This interest will no doubt lead to an increased use of these tools even after social distancing is over. My opinion is that many of the smaller and less complicated meetings, forums, and seminars of the near future will be video conferences and will open up new communication avenues for marketers. In the longer term, I believe events such as trade shows, larger conferences, and live events will not only regain their previous position but will continue to grow in popularity.

Whether digital or in-person face-to-face, these events’ success will be measured by how effective they were in achieving a brand’s goals. How well they achieve those goals will depend on the imagination used to create their content.

Creativity, inspiration, ingenuity, inventiveness, and originality are all good words to describe imagination. Imagination allows you and those who work with you to build a story that creates the essence of an emotional experience.

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Allen Yesilevich | VP, Head of Marketing & Growth @ MC2

I lead the marketing, digital transformation, demand generation and growth efforts at MC2, an award-winning globally-recognized brand experience solutions agency. I also write for Forbes. Connect with me on LinkedIn and Follow me on Twitter for my thoughts on experiential and growth strategies.