How to influence emotions through marketing? Emotional marketing as a modern approach to product promotion

The Growing Role of Emotional Marketing

The traditional way marketing and advertising, aimed purely at selling something, is getting worse and worse. Today you need to be closer and more and more in informal contact with your target audience. When you tap into emotions and use psychology properly, people feel more → happyand become more receptive to your brand.

If you want people to treat your company like a "person" and not like "another company," you need to create character. You should be not only a solution provider, but also a friend. Your promotional messages should aim to touch the heart of a potential customer.

→ The shortest course of successful communication

Law of the heart (of emotions)

Al Reyes, Jack Trout and Paul Temporal were among the first to describe the effectiveness of emotional marketing in their book “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing ».

Although many say that we live in rational world, this is far from the truth. We live in an emotional world. Emotions control our behavior, and they also move the whole world. People don't care about product features. They are interested to know if the product suits their personality. The ball is ruled by the value of the product for the buyer. Therefore, emotional marketing is much more effective than rational marketing, which focuses on the characteristics of the product. To control the mind is good, but to control the heart is much better. Use marketing strategies that will compel potential buyer make decisions on an emotional level, and eliminate rational considerations that can lead a person astray.

Samsung Electronics

How did Kun Hee Lee manage to take the company from outsiders to market leaders? When he saw the firm's products gathering dust on store shelves, he made it a priority for the company to create stylish, high-end electronic products that ignite the emotions of customers. elegant design aimed at meeting human needs.

Consider cultural differences

Americans are very sentimental, so emotional marketing techniques used in their ads, touching images of people hugging and kissing, have a good effect. When some American firms started to play these same ads in Asia without adapting to the local culture, they simply aroused bewilderment among the more pragmatic Asian buyers: “What are they hugging? What do they mean by that? ".

A similar situation is observed with the emotional video advertising "Gazprom: Dreams come true!", because many people evoke only a bitter smile: "Dreams come true only for the leaders of Gazprom." As a result, such advertising worsens rather than improves the corporate image of the company.

The entertainment factor

→ Masterful Marketing

Why will people buy from you if they don't like it? If you can turn the buying process into a pleasure, you will take a big step forward. If you manage to infect the buyer with your enthusiasm and inspired vision of how wonderful the future can be, they will not even walk with pleasure, but rush to your store. Control successful business must be a source of pleasure for you, otherwise the business cannot be called successful. And since business brings you pleasure, share it with the buyer, and your business will become even more successful.

And why should you even do it? It's 2018, and you already know everything about your target customers - their gender, age, geolocation, online behavior and purchase history. You invest a lot of money in cool tools and technologies like personalization and . Intuitive marketing is last century, and today everyone is building their strategies on quantifiable data and experiments.

But even with all this information, can you really figure it out Why do your customers behave the way they do? As professional marketers, we're very good at who, what, and how... but we still don't understand why.

Take the shoe company Steve Madden as an example. You may know that their typical client - let her name be Gwen - is a woman in her 20s who lives in Chicago. It is up to you to find out her shopping history: not so long ago she bought black suede pumps in size 37. You may also be aware that this was not her first purchase and that she most often checks out using her tablet.

Paul is a woman. Age - 26. Location - Chicago. A recent acquisition is boats. Repeat client. The preferred device for shopping is a tablet. But what makes you decide to buy, Gwen? ..

However, can you pinpoint why she bought a pair of black suede shoes? What prompted her to buy this particular pair of shoes at this very specific moment in this particular store?

What if you knew this?

Imagine knowing what resonates with your target customers on an emotional level, what motivates them, and you can design your marketing experience around that data. Great, isn't it?

In this post, we'll look at how emotions and personality drive your customers to make purchasing decisions. We will also introduce you to a scheme that allows you to:

1. Determine the dominant personality types of target customers
And
2. Create a marketing experience that resonates with these different personality types on an emotional level.

How people make decisions

Before moving on to the scheme itself, let's take a look at the real science behind how people make buying decisions. More precisely, to answer the question: what determines the decisions of your customers - emotions or logic?

Consider the following scenario:

You are about to buy a new refrigerator. The old one lasted you only one year, but it has already broken twice. Repair company household appliances blame the manufacturer low-quality goods, since this is not the first time that their customers have complained about this model. The customer service of this brand of refrigerators cannot help you, and you have already realized that it is easier to buy a new one.

You don't want to make the same mistake twice, so you start making some marketing research. You study the reviews of technology on the Internet. You ask the representatives of the repair company about their recommendations on brands and models of refrigerators. You read about the features and benefits of each model to compare them.

And finally, after a thorough research of the issue, you make a purchase decision.

Is this case an example of emotional or rational decision making?

Even in this situation, you are actually highly motivated by your emotions. The fear of acquiring another stupid device has made you not only make a purchase decision, but also consciously consider various options.

Previously, scientists believed that we make decisions rationally; emotions only interfere with this cognitive process. In this understanding, which originated in the thoughts of ancient philosophers such as Plato, emotions were the opposite of reason.

But by the 1990s, findings from cognitive psychology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience began to contradict this view. Scientists have realized that emotions and the mind are integrated systems, not separate entities. And that emotions (such as fear) can spur action even before the subject has cognitively processed the threat.

New evidence has led to a change in the perception of decision as a rational process - now it is considered emotional. In other words, scientists and researchers today agree that it is emotions that lead to actions. But surprisingly, many marketers still don't use this information.

The Power of Emotional Communication

So emotions lead to action. What does this mean for you?

Imagine that you live in a beautiful area. Your home and yard mean a lot to you. After all, this is where you and your family spend the most time. You put in some serious effort painting the fence, decorating everything around. climbing plants, laying a lawn, laying out a garden, paving a path leading to the door with stones. Your favorite chair is waiting for you on the porch after a long day at work. You have created a space that is a sanctuary. your sanctuary.

And the last thing you want is to communicate with sales agents who come to your doorstep, interrupt your peace of mind and invade your personal space.

Option 1: “Private property. Do not violate the boundaries of ownership! Option 2: "Caution! Angry dog!"

Which sign do you think would be more effective? Which one would you personally choose?

Most likely you will lean towards the sign with angry dog(that's what most people will do).

Why is a sign with a dog more effective?

In the example above, the sign on the left relies on fact-based communication. The purpose of the message “Private property. Do not violate the boundaries of ownership! - to create a rationale for behavior based on the traditional social norm of respect for the property of another person. This is done through informing.

Signing with a dog, however, creates an emotional connection. It aims to get a much more powerful internal response. For many people, the threat of a dog attack provokes a risk response. And this reaction makes it less likely to want to penetrate the boundaries of your possession.

The mode of communication (the sign) evokes an emotion (fear) leading to action or its absence (non-violation of boundaries).

Similarly, your customers are influenced by emotional communication.
Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux explains: "... The neural connections in the brain at this point in our evolutionary history are such that the connections from the emotional to the cognitive systems are stronger than the connections from the cognitive to the emotional systems."

LeDoux suggests that neural waves flow from the old brain to the new brain, meaning that decision-making is much less rational than we would like to believe.

Moreover, emotions occur before thoughts and flow much faster. Which brings us to the next point...

Dominance of implicit processes

There are two types of human thinking: conscious and unconscious. In classical economic theory, consumers are rational subjects of the economy, making choices after considering all important information using conscious thought. But this theory has a weak point.

Conscious thinking is an explicit process and requires a significant amount of energy. The human brain is only 2% of our weight, but it consumes more than 20% of all the energy we generate. As our body strives for efficiency, it limits the consciousness that absorbs energy. From which it follows that the brain processes almost all communication signals coming from the outside unconsciously, through implicit processes (Implicit Processes).

Implicit and explicit processing illustrated in bits of information consumed per second. Vertical graphs - information coming through: eyes, ears, skin all the senses combined. Vertical graphs: implicit processes (bps), explicit processes (bps)

The implicit process is controlled by the limbic system, sometimes called the emotional brain. As a result, many of our decisions are made unconsciously and based on emotions.

The limbic system is sometimes called the "emotional brain". Marked from left to right in the figure: reptilian brain, limbic brain, neocortex

When a customer decides to buy something from you, they often make the decision before their minds understand it. Based on millions of clues, he decides that your product is right for him at any given time.

It's up to you to create a feeling that the product is "suitable" for your target customer, and to demonstrate the features and benefits that allow buyers to justify their purchase.

Optimizing the Marketing Experience for Emotional Demand

The problem with most marketers is that it is very difficult to:

1. Determine the main emotional factors of target customers,
2. Display your results as a dataset
And
3. Actually incorporate these motivators into your marketing experience.

But all this is possible. Let's call it optimization for creating emotional significance. First and foremost, it requires an understanding of the emotional systems of the human brain. In particular, you need to understand how the three main emotional systems work and how these systems affect the behavior of clients in terms of both desire and aversion.

3 systems include:

Stimulation System aimed at discovering new things and learning new skills. This part of the brain actively responds to novelty, curiosity, change, surprise, and excitement. This system seeks to avoid boredom and appeals to new sensations.
Dominance System focuses on efficiency, standing up for one's position, overpowering competitors, and achieving status, power, and a sense of victory. The system reacts sharply to anger, rage and impotence.
For Balance System the main motivators are the attempt to avoid risks and the desire for stability. This area is influenced by fears and anxieties, and is also associated with harmony and conformity, since its goal is security.

The first two systems are risk-oriented, while the third is counter-oriented, as it wants to minimize risks.

Features of each system. Reward/Wish for each system: dominance - pride, feeling of victory; stimulation - excitement, surprise; balance - safety, security. Punishment / Subject of disgust for each system: dominance - anger, rage, impotence; stimulation - boredom; balance - fear, stress, uncertainty

So how do we as marketers explore, understand, and benefit from these emotional systems? This is where the limbic model comes into play.

limbic model

This model was developed by the German research group Gruppe Nymphenburg is over 20 years old and is based on the latest findings from a range of disciplines including neuroanatomy, evolutionary biology, neurochemistry and psychology.

The Limbic Model describes the different emotional systems that exist in your client's mind, and how these systems interact in the brain and how they influence behavior (shopping).

What makes this model different from other personality profiling tools, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the Predictive Index, is that it is the first kind designed specifically for marketing. It focuses on uncovering buying emotions and motivations rather than how people relate to one another.

In the center of the model is the limbic map. All human motives, desires and values can be represented and related to each other on this card.

limbic types

All of the emotional systems—stimulation, dominance, and balance—are present in each of us, but to varying degrees. In most people, one of the systems is more pronounced than the others. The limbic model allows you to classify the target customer segment by psychographic profile, and not just by demographics or geographic location.

Digging deeper into the basic emotional systems, you will notice that there are seven limbic types based on the emotional values illustrated on the limbic map.

7 main limbic personality types. 1. Hedonist - curious, spontaneous, fun, creative, individualistic, extrovert, prefers variety. 2. Adventurer - impulsive, adventurous, independent, undisciplined, loves challenges. 3. Attuned to accomplishments - focused on efficiency, success, status, ambitious, wants to take place in life. 4. Disciplined person - economical, logical, prone to strict discipline, precise, obligatory, logical, prefers understandable structures. 5. Traditionalist - inclined to follow traditions, modest, decent, loves structure, seeks to protect himself in everything. 6. Strives for harmony - focused on family, harmony, caring, sincere, feels the need for a sense of security. 7. A person of broad views - abides in good mood, open to new things, has a developed imagination, tends to dream, flexible, likes to enjoy all the senses

If you can understand your audience in terms of limbic types, then you can design a marketing experience that resonates with them on an emotional level.

Example

One of the retailers took a look at their products and realized that in Lately almost all of them were offered at a discount. This is a great example of how marketers get stuck in a rut. For retail, discounts are a tried and true method of increasing conversion rates and quick sale goods. But what if the sale isn't the best motivator for your target audience?

Motivators for different systems: stimulation - scarcity ("Limited Offer"), dominance - discount ("21% Off"), balance - social proof ("Most Popular")

Different fit different limbic types. A person who is affected by the stimulation system is less attracted to discounts, but he is interested in something new, exclusive or limited in offer. One of Robert Cialdini's 7 principles of persuasion, scarcity, better fit such an audience.

The balance person, on the other hand, wants to be sure that he is making the right choice. He is risk averse and open to consensus. Instead of a discount, it would be more efficient to showcase products with big amount recommendations, or social proof.

The future is emotional marketing

Today's marketers have more data than ever before. But even with all this wealth, they still lack a complete picture of who their customers are and why they do the way they do. The limbic model allows us to deeply explore the question of "why" people behave in a certain way and create a marketing experience that is meaningful to them. An experience that motivates consumers on an emotional level.

Uncovering the underlying motivations of your buyers will have a positive impact on all of your marketing. You won't need the marketing gurus of the past to guide your campaign strategy, orchestrate the in-store experience, design the perfect website, or write persuasive headlines. Instead, you can use scientific methodology to determine what your customers like and why they buy. And that goes for the entire marketing spectrum.

High conversions for you!

After all, what does a studio need to prove that it is cool? Do something really cool. Come up with something that will be remembered by many and will play the role of a whole portfolio for many years.

The report was called “How to promote a brand with fan content”, but after the report I took a short interview, I felt that Eugene did not share everything interesting. So the article will be in two parts: - a transcript of the report - an interview with Evgeny Kudryavchenko.

How to promote a brand with fan content

Idea

excuse generator - Velcro for clients

Tells Evgeny Kudryavchenko:

After the dollar exchange rate rose strongly, we, as a rather expensive agency, began to sag in sales. And then we decided to attract attention and find new customers in an unusual way. There was an idea to make a site excuses.

Once upon a time, we ourselves resorted to the services of freelancers, and more often than an excellent result, we received wonderful excuses. We heard everything: about “accident near Kharkov, urgently send money”, about the fact that the project is ready, but then the capillary burst, and the doctor forbade working on the computer, about the fact that “I nailed my right hand, I type the code with my left hand, very difficult".

We decided to lead these excuses, to seize the leading position. It turned out that such a service already existed five or six years ago in America. But he only had 12,000 shares there during that time. And someone once tried to do something similar in Russia.

We understood that:

We won't get a second chance. If the project does not “shoot” immediately, then it is unlikely to take off later
We need to figure out how to beat him in form, because there have already been similar projects, and additional weighty arguments are needed to become the first.

main page of the leader of the smearing industry

And we began to urgently bother in terms of design. Let the designers do whatever they want. Initially, we understood that the design should be simple. The first option is without a character. Simple concise design, one call to action button.

too concise

But it lacked some zest. The site did not catch on, and I did not want to return to it. Therefore, we decided to add a character. We found such a stupid person who evoked emotions.

really handsome?

When we found our character, everyone said: “Yes, he is kind of stupid!”. And then we immediately realized that he was what we needed. Because characters are meant to evoke emotion. They should amuse, they should upset, evoke emotions and leave no one indifferent.

We had to make excuses and a picture so funny that people would want to share it. To do this, we came up with an automatic text generator. And the ability to generate an excuse. Of course, the programmers made just the text, but again it turned out to be boring.

And we decided to send this character for automatic generation so that the pictures are different. Take the time and effort to find a character that will cling! If we replace this stupid face with some kind of cat, logo or other image, it would not be so memorable anymore.

Your main picture should hook the user even with the laziest scrolling. The ideal test is you put on your family at half past twelve in the evening, having already drunk a beer, and lazily flipping through your Facebook feed, and if you are somewhere, then this picture is very cool.

Try to immediately calculate what objections and wishes users may have. And knowing what they can tell you, you will have a ready answer: “Yes, we know, everything will be here literally in a day”, or a funny answer, or try to close this hole. Because the comments “Wow, cool!” and “Oh, why not mobile version?” - they are completely different in mood. And all such negative moods need to be removed and removed.

We filled the first 60 excuses ourselves. We remembered everything that was sent to us, and something began to come up with.

excuse must impress

We tried to use different humor. From complete nonsense (did not pick up the phone for seven days, a vow of silence passed), to real stories.

For example, we have a story about a copywriter girl. She wrote to us: “My parrot got sick, I take him to the vets. If you want to receive your text as soon as possible, pray for his health.” We used to believe such stories. Now we understand that everything happens in life, but still, when the SBU takes away servers from one person, then after three hours he already “resolved issues”, and the day after tomorrow his fiber optic was turned off in the whole city, and a day later If it was not aliens who took him for research, then it becomes clear what type of people he is.

So, necessary minimum to start, we scored ourselves - about 60 excuses. We had three call to action buttons on the screen. The first "I want another excuse." At what we made a long break between excuses - it was about 8 seconds so that it was impossible to click quickly.

They complained to us, but we understood that if we were given the opportunity to click quickly or dump them in a list, then the wow-effect would be lost.

launch

how a single post on facebook worked

Everything was ready to launch. The release was scheduled for February 4, we had to contact loyal media, give them press releases and a press kit. But! I wanted to fix possible bugs. For example, we tested the website of the Ministry of Finance for two months, and after its launch, we found a bunch of bugs on Facebook in 30 minutes. Then I realized that Facebook is the best tester.

the same post

I started one single post on my Facebook and went to the hairdresser….When I got back to the office three hours later, we already had 36,000 visits.

Other than that one post, there was no more advertising, not a single cent invested in promotion, nothing. What happened?

post went viral

Clients liked our irony. They started writing to their clients and tagging them for everyone to see. They all got it. In fact, there were about 10,000 sherov. He wrote about us “Zuckerberg will call” (now VC.ru). Then Cossa, then we got into the selection of Mann, Ivanov and Ferber “60 most useful Internet services”. It was already unstoppable. On the first day we were visited by about 100,000 people.

Do you want to be written about? Come up with something cool

I will say that excuses are actually sent to us so far. Here is a screenshot:

notice how the number of excuses has grown

There is still traffic. Now the average site traffic is 1000 people, the peak was 100,000, and there were some peaks in the moments after the publication of the advertisement of the next resource.

In principle, we do not deal with the site, we only occasionally publish excuses. People complain that we do not edit them and a lot grammatical errors. But we chose to publish it as it is. This is how they are sent to us, in the same spelling we publish. Someone thinks that we are lazy, but our point of view is that this is how written excuses are sent to customers.

results

modestly ... what's there, no, not modestly

But since Zuckerberg and Cossa wrote about our site, they learned about us on the Russian market. We have received about 10 direct clients. The questions were about subcontracts - how much does a design cost, and how do you do layout. (By the way, we made the layout original).

By by and large the entire CIS digital market learned about us.

So, a good idea+ decent implementation = success. It is very important that you are remembered, that the content goes by word of mouth, that there is huge traffic. Do everything for this. Press the layout designers, look for your character, your concept. Whatever genious idea, if it is poorly implemented, then they will not want to share it.

What didn't fit in the frame. Interview

Tell me, do you use a sense of humor in other projects, or is it a one-time action? We use it where appropriate.

But definitely not for the website of the Ministry of Finance? For the website of the Ministry of Finance, there were just not enough jokes. But I can give an example of an online clothing store for girls. A person buys and puts the goods in the basket - usually it is always very boring. Thank you for your purchase! We will call you back! It's sad.

And we decided to add characters - two heroes of warehouse employees who start to fight over who will fulfill this order. They danced a striptease there, made compliments, fought - butted heads and shouted: “This order will be mine!”. These were 10-15 second videos that were shown to the site visitor after placing an order.

The effect exceeded all expectations. The girls really liked it - it's not enough to say. Letters “we want to meet the guys” began to come to the store, say hello to the guys. There was only one minus that used to order a lot of goods. But then they started ordering one product at a time to watch different videos with the guys.

Wonderful! Only one thing is not clear - how you explained this idea to the customer. How did you get him to agree? Was the customer pretty creative? We came to the showroom, the girl buys some beautiful thing and immediately begins to take pictures with her, begins to rejoice at her. She gave money, received a thing, and joy came to her. And on the Internet? She bought ... but there is no joy. There are hours of waiting, and we decided to thank the girl for her actions right there.

As a result, the customer began to praise the online store even before receiving the goods. She hasn't received anything yet, but she's already writing on Facebook: "This is the best online store I've ever seen."

In fact, people are so tired of such plastic forms, plastic communication. For example, when we were making an online store for books, we wrote “catalog - I’ll find it myself” or “let the computer find it”.

When there is a need to move from “you” to “you”, you should always do it.

Or take any form on the site. For example, a form of eight fields: fill in the passport, identification code, enter your data, on top the heading “Fill out the form”. It's so boring!

But you can write: “Attention! If you do not want your customs uncle to lose your package, please fill in this data without errors. And how much such a live appeal instead of a dry “fill out the form” increases the conversion - and it costs nothing to the client.

How to promote a serious project? What to do then? In serious projects, it is necessary, no matter how trite it sounds, to work for the target audience. But even if we sell some complex systems that are integrated at factories with 50,000 employees, in the end, the decision to integrate this system is made by a specific person - the owner, shareholder, IT director. And this specific person, he also wants to eat, enjoy life. You can communicate with him “like you”, or in his language, and work not for everyone, but for this particular decision-maker. When we create a “serious” site, we see one person who should come in and say: “Damn! I finally found them."

Tell me, does your studio have a blog? It's just that this conference is dedicated to content marketing. Or are you just as cool as a content generator yourself and therefore don't need a blog? We only have an English-language blog so far. We need it to move to the west, unfortunately for Europe and America we are not named yet. But in Russia and Ukraine we are very well known (we have so many awards, we flicker at all conferences, seminars).

These cases could be told to people in the blog (sotritelling), arranged as articles, long reads, and you would ... become famous number two. For Ukraine, probably, there are simply not enough other resources, and in general, I think that the blog is right idea. And if any company has something to tell, then a blog will be very useful to them.

I hope you enjoyed the story and the interview and inspired it.

In 2015, representatives of the Higher School of Economics studied the behavior of shoppers. The goal is to understand how emotions affect consumer behavior. It turned out that customers buy more often if they feel sympathy, joy or trust in a product or company. My experience also shows that emotional marketing- impact on human emotions - effective method encourage him to buy. I will give three examples.

Example 1 Chocolate Printing Press

The American company HubSpot found out which first sentences do not inspire the reader, but, on the contrary, force them to delete the letter.

In our article, we have collected 5 such phrases, and ways to correct mistakes.

Chocolate manufacturer Cadbury decided to attract the attention of consumers at the point of sale (the action took place in Malaysia). We suggested placing a personalized message on the chocolate. The client could give a compliment, confess his love or show some other sign of attention. For this, printing presses were installed in hypermarkets. The buyer voiced the message, the employee typed the text on the machine and applied it to the tile. The chocolate manufacturer made the printing presses to order.

The campaign ran for a month. During this time, chocolate sales in stores increased by 30%.

Example 2. Edible mug

I will tell you how the sales of Cream-O dairy brand were increased. Children don't really like milk. They prefer sweets, and they often eat sweets with milk. This sparked the idea of making an edible mug out of biscuits so kids can drink milk straight from it. A mug covered in dark chocolate was given away in stores for free. The instructions were placed on the packaging of the mug.

Milk with a mug sold out in a week. Emotional Marketing increased Cream-O sales by 19%. The children were delighted with the new way to consume milk. Adults also appreciated, as they did not have to convince the children.

Positive Marketing: How to sell with good deeds

Example 3. "Scary" quest

Beer manufacturer Miller positions the product as a drink for nightclub parties. As the brand was losing market share, we began to focus on in-store sales. Retail is facing tough competition. In addition, there is a restriction on alcohol advertising. I'll tell you how they did it.

Eight focus groups of six people were held. The analysis showed that the target audience– Muscovites aged 25–35 who love novelties and are looking for fresh impressions. Three evenings a week they spend not at home, but not in nightclubs either. They like to gather with friends, drink beer, have fun in unexpected places.

The entertainment trend is quests, the goal of which is to get out of the room in an hour. Halloween is an expected event. However, despite the preparation, every year it all comes down to costume parties. We came up with entertainment within the interests of the audience. We launched a campaign with a quest - "Under the mask of Miller". The Perekrestok supermarket chain offered to buy three bottles of beer. At the checkout, the client received a golden mask. To participate in the quest with friends, you needed to collect four masks. This contributed to the spread of information about the company.

In partnership with the Claustrophobia quest project, we created the Abandoned Mask Factory room on Krasny Oktyabr. The heroes of the quest solved the mystery of Mr. Miller's mask factory. In addition to naming, the brand was also integrated into the interior of the escape room and POS materials. We also involved staff who gave out masks in exchange for a check. There were also club parties that supported the idea of the campaign.

During the first week, the value share of beer sales in the Perekrestok chain increased by 30% compared to other chains that did not participate in the campaign. In the second week, during the discount, the share increased by 60%. In the first week, clients booked 70% of the time slots for the quest, the remaining 30% in the second. The number of subscribers in the social network "VKontakte" increased by 47%, in Facebook - by 10%. Free posts, articles and reports were made by electronic and traditional media, including federal channels. The partners extended the work of the Abandoned Mask Factory room for two months, and then left it altogether.

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Marketer and entrepreneur Nick Kolenda on how to use emotional appeals to influence consumer attitudes towards a product.

To bookmarks

The #tceh IT Education Center blog team translated an article by neuromarketer, psychology and marketing expert Nick Kolenda.

Emotions are extremely important in marketing, which is why I always wanted to write such a guide, but stubbornly put it off, because the amount of information on the topic can scare anyone. However, I finally made up my mind.

Chapter 1 Emotional Marketing

Emotional marketing is marketing that uses emotions to influence the consumer. Unexpected, right?

You can use emotions for different purposes:

Get the right perception.
Influence behavior.
Enhance sensations.

Chapter 2. What are emotions

Emotions - mental states, which express our relationship to the object. This is the "standard" answer to the question about the nature of emotions. There is another, more honest: we do not know anything about them.

For a whole century scientific research not a single objective and characteristic feature separate emotion.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, from What Triggers Emotions: The Secret Life of the Brain

The problem is that emotions do not have separate “labels”: anger, happiness, sadness. It's hard to admit it, but we did develop the terminology before we understood the concept. Researchers are trying to influence this situation, but it seems to be too late.

To understand what emotions are, imagine a color spectrum.

In this case, we also use labels: red, green, blue. But color names are just general categories. In fact, each color has an almost infinite number of variations. There are so many shades of red that it would be pointless - and almost impossible - to try to give a name to each of them.

One tiny "step" in the spectrum is already new color. So it is with emotions. Until recently, we thought of them as something specific, and this limited our understanding. In reality, emotions can be represented as an infinite spectrum.

Chapter 3

Human emotions have evolved so much because of their adaptive advantages over the course of evolution. They have always served two purposes:

1. Physical adaptation. Our ancestors survived because their bodies adapted to the environment.

Some phenomena require an immediate response - for example, the appearance of a predator. For others, the body must respond gradually and continuously, such as by regulating blood flow to maintain body temperature.

Internal reactions over time were reflected in the appearance of a person: in anger, the face turns red, and the pupils constrict. Visible changes are also adaptive in social interactions.

2. Social adaptation. We have evolved visible indicators of emotions because they help to communicate and recognize other people's intentions:

The sight of an angry person forces one to be alert.
If we need to scare someone, we can show outward signs of anger.

Social species of living beings have a huge advantage: they have a mechanism by which emotions can be quickly and efficiently transmitted from individual to individual. In humans, "infection" with emotions performs whole line functions, including warning, reassurance and empathy.

Robert W. Levenson, from Blood, Sweat, and Fear. Autonomous architecture of emotions»

If our ancestors noticed a tribesman who was running in fear, they could react to his emotional action in order to prepare for an attack or flight.

Chapter 4. How Emotions Affect Our Decisions

Now the fun begins. I created a model to summarize the effects of emotions. After that, I promise to explain everything. So, the types of emotions are the previous basis, or antecedents. Emotions cause certain types of behavior, which, in turn, lead to various consequences.

This is a simplified model. For in-depth study, you can refer to AIM (“Mood and Judgment: The Affect Infusion Model”) and Cognitive Evaluation Theory (“The Role of Emotions in Marketing”).

Antecedents

Three types of emotions influence our decisions (“The Nature and Role of Affects in Buyer Behavior”):

integral emotions directly related to the solution. You experience these emotions because of the current choices or the expected outcome (for example, the satisfaction of choosing option "B").
random emotions, the current mood. This principle is also called "feelings-as-information" because we use our current states (feelings) to form judgments (information).
Situational emotions. In one study, respondents were asked to rate their level of satisfaction with life. In rainy weather, people were much less happy. In response, they asked themselves, “How do I feel today?” Their overcast mood, stemming from the weather, affected the overall score.

Action-related emotions have characteristics inherent in the decision-making process. If you need to choose only one option out of many favorable ones, you may feel the expected regret. These negative feelings can influence the decision (for example, postpone the purchase).

Behavior

All three emotions in turn lead to intermediate effects:

Changing the area of focus.
Displacement of informational, social, normative and temporal focuses.
Fluctuating levels of confidence.

Area of Attention

Emotions influence our decisions because they adjust the scope of attention. Negative emotions (such as fear) mean a narrowed attention span. For example, if your child is not at home, it is difficult for you to concentrate.

Positive emotions (such as happiness) increase attention. When our ancestors were happy, they were in a safe place where an expanded attention span helped them find the resources they needed.

Emotions also affect the type of information we rely on - this is the information focus. We also tend to trust specific images more.

Even neutral emotions such as hunger stimulate acceptance or rejection.

Hunger is likely to activate general concepts and behaviors associated with acquisition. These acquisition concepts, once remembered, can influence subsequent decisions to acquire objects - even if they (say, paper clips) are clearly incapable of relieving hunger.

Time Focus

Emotions send us to the past, present or future. Temporal focus influences our decisions. For example, when we focus on the future, we have better self-control. In one experiment, people ate fewer M&M's when the researchers stimulated their feelings of hope ("").

Confidence Level

Emotions have different levels of certainty. Consider anger and fear:

When we are scared, we are less sure of the outcome of a situation.
When we experience anger, we know its cause.

More importantly, we can interpret feelings of certainty and insecurity.

Cowardly gamblers experience great insecurity. They feel that their chances of winning are becoming more unpredictable and stop playing.
Anger-prone gamblers misinterpret their sense of confidence. They feel confident about the cause of their anger, and therefore confuse this feeling of confidence with the likelihood of winning.

Consequences

The previous factors increase influence in the following directions:

Depth of processing.
Decision making speed.
Importance rating.
Probability estimation.
Choice of behavior.

Processing depth

Emotions influence our decisions because they affect the degree of mental processing of information. One factor is the level of confidence:

Emotions with a deep degree of certainty (anger) entail heuristic processing of information. We feel confident in our emotions and translate those feelings into confidence in our decision making. We do not need to think long, because we are sure in advance of the correctness of the decision.
Emotions with a low degree of certainty (fear) entail a systematic processing of information. We are no longer so sure of our emotions, and therefore, of the decision itself. There is a need to study everything carefully.

Another factor is valence ("Affective Influences on Evaluative Processing").

Positive emotions activate the heuristic processing process information. Positive emotions for us are a signal of the safety of our environment, we feel more secure at the moment of making a decision.
Negative Emotions Activate Systematic Processing information. Negative emotions signal the insecurity, instability of our environment, we believe that we must carefully consider decisions.

Decision making speed

In the same way, emotions affect our decisions, reducing or increasing the speed of their decision. Our emotional system is anchored in the present ("Affect as a decision-making system in the present").

Under the influence of emotions, we make decisions faster and choose those options that provide immediate benefits. It makes sense. Our ancestors developed emotions to help in situations where a decision is needed right now (for example, to run or fight).

Valuation

Emotions influence our decisions because they affect the perception of value (“Beyond Valence: Toward a Model of Emotional Influence on Judgment and Choice”).

Relative value

We use two methods to calculate value:

Cardinal utility is an absolute value on a quantitative scale.
Usual utility is a relative value compared to other options.

Our emotions recognize the method of ordinary utility ("Affect as an ordinary system of judging utility"). Employees are more happy not when you raise salaries to unimaginable heights, but when you make their salary higher than that of colleagues.

Why do we focus on relativity? Again, this is how evolution has evolved. When our ancestors experienced emotions, they did not calculate how much they need to earn for a decent pension. They compared the available options:

Should I fight or run?
Should I hunt or stay put?
Should I do "A" or "B"?

These solutions do not require precise calculations. They only require to evaluate: "A" is better than "B"? Or is "B" better than "A"?

View Insensitivity

Emotions have a scale problem. In other words, when people rely on emotions, they are sensitive to the presence or absence of a stimulus (the so-called difference between zero and some value), but are immune to large variations in evaluation (“Music, pandas and robbers: on the affective psychology of value”).

Christopher See and Yuval Rottenstrih measured people's willingness to pay for Madonna's CD. To begin with, they asked irrelevant questions to guide participants' thinking in a rational or emotional way. Then they asked: "How much would you pay for a set of five or ten CDs?".

People calculate the willingness to pay for a product depending on the type of thinking:

Representatives of the rational group calculated how much they would pay for one CD (for example, $3). Then the value was multiplied by the number of CDs (for example, $15 for a set of five CDs, $30 for a set of ten CDs).
Representatives of the emotional group in the calculations were based on a personal relationship to Madonna. Regardless of the number of disks in the set, it remained the same, so the intensity of the desire to pay did not change (about $20).

People experience the same emotions at different levels - for example, if they read a story based on real events, or completely fictional ("Reading fictional stories and winning delayed prizes: the surprising emotional impact of distant events").

We become so immersed in the emotional experiences of a fictional story that we are unable to distance ourselves from the information and assess whether the described actually happened.

Likewise, waiting for a hit electric shock, people feel the same level of stress regardless of the chance of getting hit in 5%, 50% or 100%. The glowing image of the impact is all that matters.

Probability score

Emotion scale insensitivity and specific imagery influence how we evaluate probability. Imagine that you have to take a red bean out of a jar of white beans. What does your intuition tell you which group is more attractive?

Veronica Denis-Rudge and Seymour Epstein did the same experiment. Most people chose the first group, even if they knew that they were less likely to succeed in it.

Respondents reported that even though they knew probability was not on their side, they felt more likely to stand a chance when they chose a jar with more red beans.

It doesn't matter that your chance of winning the lottery is 1 in 100 million. The mere presence of an image in your head of how you win is very convincing.

Choice of behavior

When people rate items sequentially, emotion influences the first option the most (“Mood and Comparative Judgment: Does Mood Affect Everything and, in the End, Nothing?”).

Why is this happening? We misattribute emotions. We perceive the first option as a source of mood. Subsequent options have less effect because we have already named our emotions.

If we feel good when we consider the first option, we are bound to be connected to that option.

Chapter 5

Before deciding which emotions to focus on, you need to figure out if you need to use them at all. Emotional appeals will be effective in the following situations:

Immediate solutions.
independent solutions.
undefined solutions.
hedonic options.
Purchase situation.
Communication with the older generation.

Immediate Solutions

Because our emotion system is anchored in the present, we rely on our emotions to make urgent decisions. Affective feelings depend more on judgments whose results and goals are closer to the present than on those whose effects are distant in time ("Affects as a decision-making system in the present").

However, urgent solutions depend on the context. In a study by Hannah Chang and Michelle Pham (“I” follow my heart and “we” follow my reasons”), students imagined their final exam would be either next month or next year.

In the first case, students would be more likely to rent an “emotional” apartment (for example, with an amazing view from the window) than a “rational” apartment (for example, one closer to the metro).

Basic strategy: if the client is limited in time when making a decision, adjust his emotions.

Tactic One: Reduce Decision Time for Hedonic Products

If your product is emotional in nature - like luxury shoes, for example - speed up the decision-making process:

Emphasize the limited quantity (for example, there are only two units left in stock).
Provide temporary discounts (for example, a sale this week only).
Minimize product availability (e.g. only sold in winter).

Tactic Two: Use an Emotional Appeal Before the Sale

Perhaps you are selling a product through automated system mailings by e-mail. In this case, place the emotional appeal towards the end of your trigger email chain—closer to the decision point.

Tactic Three: Place Hedonic Products at the Checkout

In retail stores, impulse purchases are usually hedonistic (chewing gum, chocolate, gossip magazines). This makes sense because people have a limited amount of time to make a decision.

You can use a similar approach in e-commerce. When you're selling something over a check, offer items that you enjoy near the end of your checkout time.

Tactic Four: Shorten the Waiting Time for Emotional Benefits

Because the emotion system is anchored in the present, it makes people impatient (“Bikinis provoke impatience in intertemporal choice”). Let's say you're selling a product that's meant to be fun (like stylish clothes), but the customer will only experience the benefits over time (delivery waiting period).

You can provide another benefit (access to a video with stylist tips for the purchased product). You will provide immediate benefits and be able to sell other products as well. Win-win strategy. Oh, and be sure to offer expedited shipping for emotional purchases.

Independent Solutions

Emotional appeals are more effective when customers make the choice alone. In a group of people, given the social consequences, we prefer the safer option. If the decision does not justify itself, we can always demonstrate the rationality of the choice, that is, it is easy to justify it (“I” follow the heart and “we” rely on reasons: the influence of self-regulation on dependence on feelings VS reasons in making decisions”).

In a b2b market where decisions involve a large number of people, don't rely on emotions alone. Always provide practical reasons for clients to use as a "parachute" when talking to colleagues.

Uncertain Decisions

Uncertainty can be of two types:

Good uncertainty: the contents of the gift.
Bad uncertainty: stock market crash.

Both options lead to greater reliance on emotions (“Uncertainty increases trust in affects in decisions”). When people are unsure, they use constructive thinking, which acts as a gateway to enter emotion ("Mood and Judgment").

When uncertain, give indecisive clients an emotional appeal. When clients are stubbornly indecisive, we usually resort to rational arguments. However, despite the inconsistency, their vague mood is already ripe for an emotional push.

Hedonic options

This is perhaps obvious: emotional appeals are more effective for hedonic products. The root cause has to do with superstructure information (“The Impact of Advertising on Brand Evaluation: Empirical Summarizations of Consumer Reviews of Over 1,000 Commercials”).

Acquisition situations

Emotional appeals are more effective when you describe what your product does, not what it prevents.

When we are focused on acceptance, we perceive emotions more accurately (“Conditional dependency on heuristic affects as a function of regulatory focus”). We find emotional benefits more persuasive and rely more on peripheral information (such as visual aesthetics) rather than content ("Ideals and ideas and reliance on affect VS content in persuasion").

Using emotions in products for the older generation

Emotional appeals are more effective for older demographics. And the reason for this is quite interesting (“Age-Related Differences in Responses to Emotional Ads”). In any context, we view time as limited or expansive, which changes our behavior.

This is the theory of socio-emotional selectivity ("Taking time seriously: the theory of socio-emotional selectivity"):

When time is expansive (for example, in young people), we focus on the goals of knowledge. We spend more time planning to prepare for the future.
When time is limited (for example, in the elderly), we focus on emotional goals. We spend more time with loved ones, enjoying the present.

It is interesting, by the way, that the perception of time is very malleable. Perspective changes depending on the context. College freshmen have plenty of time to spare, so they prefer to make new friends. Undergraduates have a limited perspective. Therefore, they prefer to spend time with old friends (“Socio-emotional behavior at the end of college life”).

Chapter 6

4. Embarrassment. After committing a social error, our ancestors needed to restore social ties. They developed an embarrassment characterized by a submissive posture, a blush and signifying remorse. This is how they reclaimed their position in society ("Confusion: Its Distinctive Form and Function of Appeasement").

5. Shame. Likewise, shame makes people conform accepted norms. Our ancestors needed the capacity for shame in order to accept their share of responsibility.

Chapter 7

First strategy. Feelings as a trigger for action

Zilenberg Marcel, Rob Nelissen, Seger Brügelmans and Peters Rick in the article "On the Specificity of Emotions in Decision Making" believe that feelings are correlated with actions. Every emotion serves an evolutionary purpose. So if you need to extract a specific behavior, just set the emotions that match that behavior.

Examples:

If you're selling stylish clothes, bring out the pride. Buyers will focus on someone else's opinion.
If you want to take customers away from a competitor, create fear. People will focus on escaping.
If you want people to donate, call the blame. They will be carried away by the atonement of past crimes.

Second strategy. Mood Matching

If you're not sure which emotions to target the customer, choose the feelings that match your product.

For example, people are more likely to choose an adventure vacation when they are excited. Pacified buyers often choose calm trips (""). Mood alignment is effective because we misrecognize emotions.

Valence: positive or negative

You can position emotions in two dimensions: valence and arousal (“Independence and bipolarity in the structure of momentary affects”).

Usually, you should focus on congruent (compatible, proportionate or matching) emotions. However, negative emotions are an exception. Through evolution, if people experience negative emotions, they also feel motivated to change their circumstances, and therefore turn to incongruent (non-matching) appeals.

Consumers in a negative mood prefer products that are inconsistent with both the level of arousal and the valence of their current emotional state.

From an article by Fabrizio Di Muro and Kyle Murray "Explanation on the influence of mood on consumer choice"

Excitation: low or high

The choice depends on your goal:

High emotions cause immediate action. People in tension are more likely to share online content (“Excitation increases social communication”).
Low emotions contribute to a favorable perception. When people are less aroused, they adopt lofty constructs that increase perceptual value (“Relaxation increases material appreciation”). People focus on the big picture, so they pay more attention to desirability (such as the attractiveness of a vacation) than feasibility (such as time or cost).

Temporal focus: past versus present or future

Emotions can focus on different time periods.

Past. Past-oriented emotions (such as nostalgia) can be effective. These emotions can cause an unfulfilled need.

The present. The next most useful emotions are present-oriented. They are especially valuable if your product has soothing properties.

This principle also applies to product evaluation:

When we focus on the future, we prefer exciting options.
When focused on the present, we prefer something more peaceful.

Future. If your product is not very exciting, you should avoid emotions associated with the future, such as hope. These emotions increase self-control (“Useful Hope: The Impact of Future Positive Emotions on Consumption”), which is not good for emotional buying.

In addition, despite the positive valence, these emotions are characterized by uncertainty. And we can mistakenly transfer our uncertainty to other aspects of the decision (for example, an indefinite desire for a product).

Chapter 8

We experience different types of emotions: integral, random, and task-related. How to call them? Select contexts in which people experience similar emotions. Instead of directly arousing the senses, look for places where people experience the targeted emotions you want ("Will this trip be really exciting? The role of random emotions in product evaluation").

Advertising placement

Consider context when choosing ad placements.

Spotify → cool playlist. Increases arousal, which increases propensity to act

Hulu → TV shows from the past. Touches on nostalgia that creates an impossible need that your product can satisfy

In both cases, people experience special emotions. If you present your proposal, people are more likely to misinterpret their emotions.

Instead of asking themselves how they feel about a product, people are more likely to ask, “Will this product make me feel the way it promises?” In the answer to this question, the phenomenon of the quality of sensations is more pronounced, and not the general valence.

Times of Day

People tend to have more energy (high arousal) in the late morning while feeling tired (low arousal) at night. You can plan your segmentation strategies by using these time periods correctly:

Late in the morning, your site might recommend exciting products (such as sports equipment).
At night, soothing products (such as blankets).

Location

Location also influences emotions. If the store is located in a popular shopping center near restaurants, it is logical to assume that many visitors eat before or after shopping.

If people have not eaten, they are hungry - that is, they are in a state of acquisition.
If people have already eaten, they are full - that is, they are in a state of saturation.

Always consider logistics. Even if, in a state of hunger, consumers rate products as more attractive, they may delay the purchase so as not to carry shopping bags to the restaurant.

Strategy: emotional schema

For the purposes of directly arousing emotions, network theory should be taken into account. Our brain is made up of an associative network. When we consider the relationship between two concepts, we form a connection between them. Then you just need to activate one concept to affect another. I will give some examples.

Color

facial expressions

Facial expressions are an equally powerful tool, because it is from them that we read other people's emotions ("Facial expression and emotion").

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