11 Benefits Of Emotional Branding With Examples
‘I’ve got one, two, three, four, five – senses working overtime…’
That’s what XTC said back in the eighties – and it’s still true now; perhaps more than ever…
First, let’s talk about marketing strategy. A marketing strategy refers to the way companies target various individuals and turn them into potential customers. A marketing strategy brings the company to the customer in a better format.
It is not an easy task to create a new product or start a business, but it also involves a greater deal of work to get people’s attention. In fact, as a businessman, it is not just important to have a product to sell, but also important to have people who want to buy the product. This is where the marketing strategy comes in.
Many companies can sell products, but what puts a particular company ahead of others is how well they embed the products in the heart of their customers. Marketing strategy makes that possible.
Creating a marketing strategy requires a good plan which must relate to a company’s core. It must be deeply rooted in a company’s mission. Your strategy should tell you the company’s advantage over other competitors and why you should go for it.
The goal of every company is to get their customers’ attention. Emotional brands create this lasting impact on customers.
So how do you introduce an emotional attachment into your business to connect with your customers? How do you tap into the senses of your customers to ensure marketing success?
It’s so important to consider every one of the senses – if you want to devise promotions people really respond to.
But how can you do that – and what should they include?
1’ll tell you…
1. The gift of sound
Sound and vision are a gift to marketers – and they make a lasting impression. That’s even evident in our old-time adverts. I guess they still make you remember the good old days when you see the old logos.
But I’ll go on to discuss the emotional connection music makes in a moment.
Sound can be an extraordinarily important tool in your marketing campaigns – but it’s also often one of the most underestimated.
Why is music important?
Music has a unique effect on our brains, especially in terms of memory. And, when it comes to your business, it’s a brilliant way to make people remember you.
Just think of all those jingles you heard right back when you were a child? You can still sing most of them now if you’re honest. You’re doing that right now in fact – aren’t you?
I know…
So why does that happen?
Research shows that music activates many different centres across the brain – including the emotional ones. It creates a stronger memory – which is, of course, very important in marketing.
It can create an immediate perception too – which is really useful in brand creation and reinforcement. Just think of all the companies who tap into this – who use music to build a sense of nostalgia or excitement, for example. You remember them immediately, don’t you?
It works…
2. The gift of vision
The dominant sense is your sight. Apart from some special scenarios, your eyes are wide open almost all of the time you are active. Perusing products on a two-dimension display does not give satisfaction to see the product. You can take advantage of this human need by creating a highly visual showcase of the product. Innovative retailers ensure that all distractions – like competing products or price stickers, are taken out of the view so shoppers are focused on the product only.
When you combine music with great visuals, you create an even stronger connection – which lingers long in everyone’s memory. You paint a picture of an aspirational lifestyle, perhaps – or tell the story of what your brand is about.
Using music and video also gives you instant access to enormous free traffic sources – and is one of the most cost-effective ways to promote yourself.
Users can embed your videos into their online sites and/or share the content themselves too – which helps build a ‘tribe’. And increases brand loyalty.
3. The gift of smell
The human sense of smell is connected to the part of the brain that processes emotions. The smell of an environment tells a lot about the environment. People naturally let their guard down around people that smell nice.
The same thing goes for shops. The nice scent from a fine air freshener makes shoppers more comfortable in your store and encourages them to spend more. Apart from the general store scent, there is a specific scent that can trigger certain emotions and then sales.
Some smells are also associated with gender, age, type of products. For children stores, the scent of sweets and candy will encourage the kids. The scent of freshly baked bread makes us naturally think the bread is fresh. Nike recorded a huge increase in intent to purchase when they added Flowery scent to their retail store.
4. The gift of touch
Shoppers have a higher probability of buying a product they touch and hold in their hands. That is the main reason online stores also have physical stores where shoppers can come and physically interact with the product.
This is the major way retailers entice shoppers to buy more. The texture of surfaces touched also affects sales. A warm handshake in conjunction with a soft fluffy sofa lures shoppers to purchase more of your wares.
A step further to touching the wares is using it. It is not enough for shoppers to see the wares, touch them but be unable to use them. Retail shops now allow shoppers to use the demo product to try out the feel of the actual product.
Some stores like 3C hub and Micro Station (they specialize in sales of electronics) allow you to use the exact copy of the mobile phone you are about to buy, you can do all sort of things within the reasonable sphere to the mobile phone.
A similar thing is done with toys and hobby stores. The Game Chest allows kids to play with actual toys from the store. The toys are openly displayed and the shoppers can try them out even before purchase. Provision of seats and table is made available for board and card games
5. The gift of Taste
Even though this applies majorly to consumable products’ stores, other stores have started using this sense to attract customers. Stores now offer a complimentary snack and light refreshment.
The last phone I bought, you wouldn’t believe that I chose the store just because of the candy offered. The sense of taste is a powerful one. It has been in use for ages. Another example is the cake and wine tasting parties.
A further step to complimentary refreshment is having an in-store restaurant. For example, Ikea, serve over a billion signature meatball in their restaurant even though they primarily sell furniture.
6. The gift of friendship
When your company comes up with a good and creative way to present your products, customers are happy. When you sell your strategy in a way that is emotionally appealing, it helps to bring in target customers. It helps customers to stay in the business. It is not the profit that matters, it’s winning your customers over that matters.
Unexpected events may happen which could be bad for the company but if the feelings and emotions of the customers have been well protected, they can trust you again.
In moments like this, it is not the huge amount of money that you’ve been able to make that’ll save your company, rather, the customers that you’ve been able to bond with over time. As unrealistic as this might sound, especially in this age and era, people can go to great lengths for brands they trust.
7. Emotional branding is ‘quality’
When customers feel at ease with a certain product, it helps the business. When they feel they can relate to a particular product, it helps to build a certain relationship with clients.
Emotional branding makes your customers trust your company and the products. Why? It catches their attention with the quality of the products you offer & establishes have a good relationship with them. This helps the company to grow and strengthens business relationships.
It is important you do not just see your company as a money-making firm but that which adds value to the lives of others and the society at large.
Don’t exploit their customers, give them something unique – It could be just a small event or free gift day. When you are all about satisfying emotions, you will realize that everything is not always about making money or increasing your wealth but maintaining a quality relationship with your customers.
8. Emotional branding changes taste
One thing that people love is a change of taste. When a taste becomes too usual, customers can get tired of it. People love to introduce a change in the way things are done. The human mind wants to see something new from time to time.
Not necessarily a new product but the same product in a new and better way. The human mind isn’t static, but rather it is constantly looking out for new ideas and new information. As a good businessman or woman, you should be able to take advantage of this.
Emotional branding gives customers the benefit of using what is trending which strengthens your company. For example, if you observe that everyone loves a particular song, you could take some of the lyrics of that song and use it to develop a catchy phrase for your product.
9. The gift of difference
Emotional branding entails doing something different which gives you total control over the market. Once you’ve got the customers’ attention and all, you seem to have good control of the market. Have you ever had this feeling whereby despite the high price, you still prefer to go for a particular product than a cheaper alternative?
That’s the power of emotional branding. In a place where we have so many people selling the same product, an average businessman might think maintaining their cost structure would make the business improve, but that’s not true.
The key to creating a competitive system is by getting to the emotions of your customers by doing something different. This difference depends on how much you understand what they want and how they want it.
Read – How to make customers feel really special
10. Emotional branding helps to make better decisions
Emotional branding is an inside job that not many companies are aware of. Only a few companies take advantage of this. The influence of emotional branding is indeed large and it helps to improve a company’s productivity.
Sometimes, you might feel that you know what’s in your mind of your customers at all times, however, a company that pays more attention to the emotions will know when exactly to cut the price or when to keep it the same.
Most companies have suffered much loss due to a ridiculous cut down in price at the wrong time or season. As a businessman, let me give you this analogy, the same way a child expects certain toys or wears at certain times, customers also want some form of recognition. They might not admit it but they want their emotions to be fed at certain times. This could be a festive period or a special anniversary.
Businesses even use music with a seasonal feel to trigger the emotions we associate with Christmas, or holidays, for example. Our brains remember that pathway – and a great marketing campaign is born…
11. It gives a touch of professionalism
After all is said and done, how do you make sure your campaign connects?
If you want to create a truly successful music and video campaign, it’s best to engage some real professionals. Specialized companies can offer a range of expertise to make sure it really connects.
So next time you’re planning your business’s marketing strategy, don’t forget the impact emotional connection can make. By appealing to people’s senses, via the use of video and music, you really can make a lasting impression.
Every time I think about sight and visions in branding, I always remember the Hunter Japan store in Tokyo. The store uses audio-visual cues to transport shoppers for instance to a forested landscape with trees with the sound of rain. Another instance is getting a professional to replicate the brand’s home country by creating a representative London cloudy sky by the digital lightbox ceiling.
Once the visual cue is right, it creates an atmosphere where shoppers can feel connected.
Conclusion
Emotional branding as defined by Wikipedia refers to the practice of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer’s emotional state, needs and aspirations. The whole aim of emotional branding is to ignite an emotional response from the customer.
Though interlacing technology is a great idea. However, it is not reasonable to spend most of your hard-earned income on one display. You need not have a budget of Nike or Ikea to evaluate all facets of the experience.
No matter how tough a person might be, he has things that appeal to him emotionally one way or the other. It could be a particular colour, a particular song or a particular phrase. For example, children are excited when they see things that are colourful or flashy.
At this point, you would know that emotional branding isn’t all about fancy technology, it is about engaging all human senses. Creativity comes into play here because it will determine the way your business is perceived.
So, if you want to introduce a certain product for children into the market, you have to present your product in a way that appeals emotionally to them. Let’s say the product is a particular beverage, you have to make sure that the beverage is packaged and wrapped in a way that appeals generally to children emotionally. You could put a cartoon character on it.
We are all constantly ‘switched on’ and distracted these days, aren’t we?
And that can make it a challenge to get any marketing message across effectively. Unless you understand the way people’s brains work – and how to make a real emotional connection.
What do you think? Share your thoughts.
