How to create an orchestra of successful emotional marketing

The one thing that connects us all humans is emotions. Emotions drive us. No matter what caste, creed or race we are from, the emotional response under certain situations from a human being will be the same. This lays the foundation of something so important for marketers.

'Want to make your marketing team more productive? Start collaborating using ProofHub.

If as a marketer, you are able to orchestrate your efforts in a way to yield an emotional response from the user, you can easily influence their buying behavior.

As easy as it might sound, but to transform these words into reality is a big challenge. However, there are quite a number of businesses who have made good use of emotions in marketing to attain success.

Now the question that arises here is - how can you as a marketer can orchestrate such a symphony for your business? To get an answer to this question, we will take a look at the four basic types of emotions and how they impact the user behavior -

1. Happiness

Happiness is the biggest driver of likes, shares and revenues in marketing. In one of the studies carried out at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School it was concluded that articles written on a positive note, stimulating the feeling of happiness get viral easily as compared to the ones written with a negative frame of mind.

In fact, if we look at the YouTube data from Google, we get to know that for every ‘dislike’, you get 10 ‘likes’ on YouTube. This clearly indicates that if something makes people happy, they tend to share the source of happiness with others.

Brands which have used it to good effect

The best example of stimulating that feeling of happiness and joy in marketing campaign to drive sales came from one of the most recognized brands in the world - McDonald’s.

A couple of years back it came with the ‘I’m lovin it 24’ campaign, owing to their first fall in sales in more than a decade. The campaign was targeted to bring moments of joy so that people associate the feeling of happiness with McDonald’s. The result was a highly successful campaign! 

2. Sadness

Sadness is the strongest of all human emotions. Science says that feeling of sadness stimulates the brain to produce oxytocin, which is also called as the stress hormone. Now the good thing about release of oxytocin is that it induces the feelings of empathy and connectivity.

So if a marketing campaign is targeted towards stimulating the feeling of sadness, then it can easily work as the first step to get people to connect with your brands.

Brands which have used it to good effect

The advertisement by MetLife Hong Kong reflecting a father’s unwavering love for his daughter is a great example of using the sadness emotion to make people connect with your brand. 

The ad tells the story of a daughter who narrates everything she loves about her father. But in end the story comes to a point where we get to see the sacrifices he makes to bring joy to her daughter. And, how the daughter knows that his father is lying to her about. 

The end result was an emotionally stimulating campaign which has garnered more than 13 million views on YouTube! 

3. Anger / Insult

How can a feeling of anger be used to market your brand? This was my initial response when I was researching on the topic. However, as I figured out case studies from some major players from around the world, I came to figure out that it is not the feeling of anger that made the campaigns successful. It was the response to the feeling of anger that did the job! 

Normal people who feel agitated at social injustices easily relate themselves with brands that highlight those issues in their marketing campaigns. This burst of anger can work positively towards the success of not just your marketing campaign, but for your business provided you can justify how you brand supports the case beyond just an advertisement.

Brands which have used it to good effect

One of the best examples of stimulating the feeling of insult and getting people to emotionally connect with your brand came in the form of ‘Like a Girl’ campaign by Always. With more than 90 millions views and One million shares on YouTube, the campaign puts the strong message that changed the perception of people towards the phrase - ‘like a girl’.

An idea about how successful the campaign turned out to be can be drawn from the fact that the followers for Always tripled within just three months. And, at the same time their YouTube followers grew up by 4339%!

4. Fear

The fourth basic emotion that is associated with not just humans but all living beings is the emotion of fear. Instigating the feeling of fear in the users first, and then letting them know how your product or service can prevent those terrible things from happening to them is a tried and tested emotional marketing gimmick that has worked for numerous small as well as large brands.

Stimulating the feeling of ‘freedom from fear’ can inspire the users to not just recognize your brand and connect with it, but to take action and become a reliable customer of your brand as well. 

Brands which have used it to good effect

One of the best examples of using the emotion of fear in advertising came in the form of Volkswagen Jetta advertisement. The ad shows passengers of their car being saved by the prompt opening of the air bags, with the message “Safe Happens”.

 The company says that they managed to create the advertisement so realistic that people called to ask Volkswagen if anyone in the car had been hurt during the shooting?

But, be careful

All this brings us to the conclusion that effective use of emotions in marketing can prove to be great for your brand. However, you need to be careful while choosing any of these emotions to represent your brand.

Make sure that the emotions you use in the marketing endeavors, people are able to find that in your brand and connect it to their lives. Or else, emotional marketing can turn out to do more harm than good to your brand.

*********

?Let me send you my best stuff, click here to subscribe now!

Vartika Kashyap runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. She is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

Also follow our company page @ProofHub to get the recent updates about our tool, published articles, motivational quotes & presentations.

*********

If you liked reading this post, you are surely going to love this as well -

1. Building a culture of supporting mental health at workplace
2. It's okay to be wrong, you only have to be right once
3. Employee engagement advice every leader must follow