Associating Feeling with Brands

A. What is Emotional Branding?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but
people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou

“Customers define themselves through brands they use. The branded clothes they wear, the
cars they drive, the drinks they consume, university they attended, favorite spots to hang out,
and so on.”
Nyimpini Mabunda, Smirnoff Vodka Marketing Manager

Emotional branding is the process of forming a relationship between a consumer and a

product/service brand by provoking their emotions. Marketers achieve this by creating content
that appeals to the consumer’s emotional state, ego, needs, and aspirations.

Marc Gobé created the concept of emotional branding over 20 years ago and detailed it in his
book The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People. His philosophy is based on the
observation that connections can take place on an emotional level in relationships between
brands and people.

Emotional branding plays to humans’ natural desire for love, power, emotional security, and
ego gratification, all of which are subconscious and can be tapped into by emotionally triggered
marketing.

This tactic can be over 50% more effective than a non-emotionally targeted advertisement.
(The New Science of Customer Emotions, Harvard Business Review, November, 2015)

B. Emotional Branding vs. Emotional Advertising

Emotion can be applied more directly in advertising, such as in a specific ad or campaign. Each
emotional ad contributes to the emotional branding strategy — emotional ads are like the
individual building blocks that create structural integrity of the brand. Though emotional
advertising has risk as if incorrectly done can leave your audience feeling confused; but with
careful consideration and use of emotional appeal, however, emotional advertising can be
highly effective.

Many companies will create emotional ads in response to major events, while also promoting
their products or services. For example, following the US travel ban in 2018, Airbnb launched a
campaign pushing the idea of a global community in their “Let’s Keep Traveling Forward”
advertisement. Making a statement like this is a bold and effective brand positioning strategy.

C. The Science behind Emotional Branding

There is a science when creating the right type of advertising campaign. It takes a keen
understanding of who a brand’s audience is, and what emotion is best to elicit for a response. It
could be anger or happiness, sadness or inspiration.

Consumers want to feel emotionally connected to the brands they select because it’s an
extension of their own personality, style, and identity. And loyalty grows once a close emotional
link to a brand is formed. For example, think about some famous business rivalries that have
emotionally-charged fans:

 McDonalds vs. Burger King

 Pepsi vs. Coke
 GM vs Ford

Have you ever heard someone tirelessly fight for a brand? According to CMO, “Awareness and
relevance can make brands strong and big, but it’s the emotional seduction that makes brands
great”.

D. Emotions & Emotional Branding:

There are 8 basic emotions for emotional branding

Psychologist Robert Plutchik developed the famous wheel of emotions which identifies eight
basic emotions – joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation. His theory
starts with these basic emotions then blossoms out to multiply variations creating a wide
spectrum of emotions with opposing relationships.
Kendra Cherry author of Everything Psychology Book said, “The basic emotions, however many
there really are, serve as the foundation for all the more complex and subtle emotions that
make up the human experience.” There is some compelling evidence that shows consumers use
emotions rather than information to evaluate brands. Emotions also create deeper and more
visceral impressions that have impact on long-term memory.
Emotions are complex but for the purpose of building an emotional brand, we
used Plutchik’s eight basic emotions.

a. Negative Brand Emotions:

Most companies try to stay clear of associating their brand to negative emotions. But some
brands have been very successful in differentiating their emotional branding with the
contentious emotions of disgust, sadness, anger and fear.

Disgust
Disturbing graphic images on cigarette packs is a great example of using disgust to build the
brand of anti-smoking. Gone are the days of the iconic Marlboro man, the ultimate American
masculine cowboy brand, which drove Marlboro to the number one tobacco brand in the
world. It has been told that several actors who portrayed the Marlboro man over the years
have rode off into the sunset prematurely due to smoking-related diseases. Dr. Ellen Peters,
who conducted a research study on the effectiveness of smoking warning labels and graphic
images with 244 smokers, says, “The images definitely did stir their emotions, but those
emotions led them to think more carefully about the risks of smoking and how those risks
affected them.”
One of the most disgusting advertising for a brand has to go to OXY Face Wash with their series
of zit popping videos. Say no more, the images speak for themselves!

Sadness
Is sadness the new happy? Does it leave a mark deeper than joy? Making people cry seems to
be many brand’s objective these days. Take a look at all the holiday epic stories of lonely and
sad people. The U.K. retailer brand John Lewis is built on pulling consumers’ heartstrings. But
some would say that we can’t be happy all of the time so there is an authenticity in trying to get
to a deeper brand engagement. Several insurance companies have cornered the market for
‘sad-vertising’ such as Thai Life Insurance (Unsung Hero), MetLife (My dad’s story) and
Nationwide (Dead Boy).

Anger
Making people mad to buy a brand seems counterproductive but it is used to create an action
or to make a strong statement. If you want to change a perception or get people to take action,
anger can be a very persuasive tool. Generally, we feel angry when we see a person or a
helpless animal hurt, or a major injustice being enacted.
One of the most unique brand campaign that successfully angered its target audience was a
simple billboard advertising that said: TEXT AND DRIVE with the company logo Wathan Funeral
Home. The outraged and upset viewers went to the funeral home’s website to voice their anger
but were surprised to find that it was a PSA to get people to stop texting and driving. Angry
with a happy ending.
Fear
Every brand has a call to action and in many cases, depicts a sense of urgency to respond. But
brands would tend to prefer a positive experience and keep as far away from risk as possible.
But there are brands who thrive with their use of fear, like Greenpeace. They have been
effective in shutting down major projects and changing their prey’s business practices by way of
fear mongering. They take mere possibilities and translate them into fearful statements, such
as “Our health is threatened by climate change. Malaria, asthma, encephalitis, tuberculosis,
leprosy, dengue fever and measles are all expected to become more common.”

President Donald Trump’s success is attributed to building his brand on fear. Alex Altmen, a
Washington correspondent for TIME magazine said, “No President has weaponized fear quite
like Trump. He is an expert at playing to the public’s phobias.” Barry Glassner, a sociologist at
Lewis & Clark College and the author of The Culture of Fear, says Trump “is a master” at
creating fear. “His formula is very clean and uncomplicated: Be very, very afraid,” says Glassner.
I repeat be very afraid.

b. Positive Brand Emotions:

Trust
Without trust the financial industry doesn’t work. In essence, a five dollar bill or hundred dollar
bill is the same simple piece of paper with different numbers on them, but the buying power is
significantly different thanks to trust. No surprise that the business and financial services
industry needs trust to operate. Trust is integral to the success of all brands but foundational
for those brands built on faith and intangible, complex components.

Joy
What brand do you immediately think of when you hear the word “joy”? Think of joy as a
sudden burst of happiness on a high. Does “Joy in every bottle” ring a bell?
Most people are always on a quest to experience more joy in their lives and looking for those
small indulgences of pleasure. Many brands have found the sweet spot, such
as Starbucks, McDonald’s, Campbell’s Soup, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Zappos, and Ferrero
Rocher chocolates to name a few.

Surprise
A pleasant surprise is always appreciated by consumers and can be leveraged across all
consumer touch points (social, events, in-store, advertising, mobile, etc.).
In a social listening study conducted by DraftFCB (now known as FCB or Foote, Cone & Belding),
using W. Gerrod Parrott of Georgetown University’s emotional framework (Anger, Love,
Sorrow, Joy, Fear, and Surprise), they found “surprise” as a distant sixth place in association
with brands. So there is room for brand differentiation in using this emotion.
MasterCard has been running their “Priceless” campaign for over 17 years and in 2014 they
introduced “Priceless Surprises” with the goal of surprising cardholders when they least expect
it. For example meeting Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani or VIP tickets to special events. There
is a strong emotional element in watching a fan connect with a star and MasterCard Priceless
Surprises made it happen.

Anticipation
I am sure you have been anxiously anticipating this last emotion. Researchers have found that
people experience more intense emotions around anticipating future events/opportunities
than remembering those in the past. Booking a holiday is a great example of a positive and
powerful emotional branding as a person waits for the exciting trip. High-end cruise liners have
perfected the art of creating excitement with cruise planners and special updates prior to
embarking.
Sandals Resorts understand the importance of anticipation with their beautifully stunning,
natural blue and turquoise oceans and clear sky images, but more importantly, keeping the
excitement growing with their social media activities. Tiffany Mullins, Social Media Manager
says the Sandals Resorts “strategy is to evoke an emotion with every single social media post.”
Not only are they humanizing the brand but their social media presence is creating a virtual
vacation experience in advance of the actual vacation. Brilliant.
The Apple brand is an expert on contemplating the future and having their customers
emotionally engaged beyond their current technology and living in anticipation of the next
generation, like the iPhone 8 soon to be released. Each version is a stepping stone to further
deepen the brand loyalty or cult-like following. Apple is notorious for their pre-launch hype,
limited availability, reorders and long lineups on launch day, only to be repeated again within
another 12 – 18 months. Here we go again.

Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman says that 95% of our purchase decision
making takes place in the subconscious mind, a place where emotions are king. If you are going
to engage in emotional branding, understand how and where you want to connect to your
customers so you can consistently build on every touchpoint.
As William Gelner, Chief Creative Officer of 180 explains, “We live such digitally switched-on,
always-plugged-in lives, and yet we still also somehow feel disconnected from people. As
human beings, we’re looking for true human connection, and I think that emotional storytelling
can help bridge that gap.”