Should My Advertising Stimulate An Emotional Response?
The generation of emotion is crucial for successful marketing. Many brands benefit from an association with positive emotions. However, the most successful brands tend to have a balanced set of associations and rational strengths should not be ignored.
Advertising that generates an emotional response has two benefits. Firstly, it can help the emotions transfer to the brand, shaping the brand perceptions. Secondly, it can help generate engagement and memorability. While advertising can generate negative emotions to help create drama, for most brand advertising this needs to ultimately result in a positive emotional takeout.
For the past 10 years some commentators have reported that neuroscience has found the emotional content of advertising to be more powerful than any rational information. The neuroscientist Damasio has been interpreted as saying that when it comes to decision-making, feelings and emotions always dominate cognition. While some have regarded this as a new paradigm in advertising, it is worth reflecting on what Damasio actually wrote: “I never wished to set emotion against reason, but rather to see emotion as at least assisting reason...nor did I ever oppose emotion to cognition since I view emotion as delivering cognitive information.”
The reality is that a typical brand purchase decision for a consumer is trivial. They will take the minimum possible time to make their decision which, depending on the category, may be only one or two seconds. However, they will try to make the best possible choice, calling upon their memories of, and associations with, the brands being reviewed.
So what is the role of emotion in advertising?
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