How to create an emotional connection to your brand

Persuasion strategies play a big role in advertising. The most successful persuasive messages are those that offer the audience a real (emotional) benefit or helpful information. 

In general, people do things either because they desire a particular outcome, or they wish to avoid negative consequences of not taking action. Basically, people are willing to invest time or money to gain pleasure or to avoid pain.

An appeal to what can be gained is are often more effective than an appeal to the negative consequences of not taking action. For a negative appeal to be successful, the reader must be convinced of both the likelihood of loss and of its proximity.

For some reason there is seems to be a tendency to use scary ads in order to influence people’s behavior. Here is one example I often use to make the point that we scare people:

A few years back the Super Bowl ads series include an example where peoples’ emotions were used in a big way. This is the story of the ad: a little boy is riding his bike, playing with his friends, using his imagination to go on journeys with his dog, and a whole bunch of other things that kids are supposed to enjoy during their childhood. In the end of the ad the boy is telling the viewers that he couldn’t do any of these things because he died in an accident.

If you ask me, seeing a child pass away is one of the most heart-breaking things that can possibly happen to you and the message is extremely emotional.

I would challenge though, if this is helping to sell insurances. As human beings, we tend to shy away from talking about what will happen to our loved ones’ when we are no longer around and that is one of the reasons many of us avoid discussing life insurances.

On the other hand, there are a lot of examples that touch positive emotions. I admire the ad launched by John Lewis Financial Services from the UK: in the 90-second home insurance commercial, a young girl dances around her family's home to Elton John's Tiny Dancer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqgoUWPx4eE

This ad is not only touching me because of the very nice way the little ballerina is filmed, but also because the music is fabulous and the connection to the product offering is very clear. The girl crashes into the TV and furniture and vases almost fall to the floor. Nothing happens and she happily dances away. We don’t get scared, but very clearly get the point that home insurance is good to have - , especially when kids are around.

Zurich some years ago launched a “Family” brand campaign kicking off with a “Kinderviews” video. The idea behind the story: try to see the world through the eyes of your children. We asked some kids to tell us what matters most to them: what they’d ‘love’ to be when they grow up, who makes them feel protected, and the people they care about. Their answers are simple, direct and thought-provoking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXW-YRY7ZqY

I tend to believe that advertising where people are persuaded in a positive way is more effective than appeals to the negative consequences of not acting which creates fear, uncertainty and doubt. There is a danger that those negative emotions are connected to your brand. Multiple neuroscience studies show that emotions play a vital role in decision making. Customers use previously established emotions to evaluate the options they have. So make sure the right emotions are evoked to have an impact.

Focus on the power of emotional branding that separates you from the other companies and ideally leverage storytelling - as seen in the videos in this article - to make an impact.

See the Infographic "The science of storytelling" shown on onespot.com:https://www.onespot.com/infographic/infographic-the-science-of-storytelling/