Part two of the First Year 'think-piece' assignment.
Emotions. We all have them, we all express them (even though sometimes we wish we didn’t!). They play a massive role in how we think, make decisions and behave. Day in day out, we experience a catalyst of emotions… it’s what makes us. So, why not utilise them where possible?
Studying emotions - especially within the advertising industry - can provide a ton of insight, as integrating them can be what makes the sales. The IPA’s short film about the power of emotion, details a study in which they found that “emotional advertising is twice as efficient as rational, and delivers twice the profit”.
Now, think of a recent purchase you’ve made. Without you telling me what, I can tell you that emotions played a part, even if you wouldn't think so. Take buying a bar of chocolate - our brain will subconsciously gather everything it knows about each brand, until we finally reach a decision. So, maybe your love of Dairy Milk isn't down to the chocolate itself, but the brand - all because of how they’ve consciously chosen to advertise themselves. Although this decision would take about 3 seconds, the complexity of us coming to this decision is unthought of. This BigThink article shows neuroscientist Antonio Damasio’s study of decision making, finding that even decisions we believe to be ‘logical decisions’, are actually based on one thing. Can you guess? Yes.. emotion.
To some, using emotions within advertising is questionable due to the ethics… but that’s a whole other topic (if you're interested, click here). Emotional awareness, for this reason, is extremely important within advertising and brands need to be mindful of how they provoke consumer emotions. Take Nationwide as an example of a brand who didn't do this, after receiving backlash for the 2015 Super Bowl advert due to their poor misjudgement of both tone and context - click here to see how some viewers reacted.
One of the biggest questions posed when it comes to this is what emotions should an advertiser use? Recent research has shown there to be 27 categories of emotion; shooting down the assumption that all human emotions can simply be categorised into happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust; meaning advertisers now have an extensive list to consider when it comes to emotions and using them.
Success is seen when brands use emotional appeal (granted they’ve done their research and considered all the outcomes!). Unruly posted an article based around ‘2015 Trends’, where they name Kleenex’s Unlikely Best Friends and Budweiser’s Super Bowl #BestBuds as being two of the most shared ads of the year, and so found that “warmth, inspiration and happiness” were the prominent emotions. This wasn’t always the case, however - looking back at earlier advertising, there’s a clear concern with humour and sarcasm (see some examples here). An ad from a decade ago might’ve gone down a treat at the time, but print them today, and it'd be a different story.
This in itself shows us the power of emotion, and bring us to the conclusion that, no, we can't put a price on emotion. Especially when they are utilised erroneously. When it comes down to it, they carry way too much importance, and if cannot be used thoughtfully, should surely remain as just what they are - emotions - not a tool to generate money.
