Emotional branding appeals to consumers’ inner drives and personality traits, creating a shared interest and emotional need for a product or service. This is achieved through a brand personality, shared commitments to social causes, and addressing emotional desires such as physical attractiveness.
Emotional branding is a concerted effort to develop a company’s or product’s advertising in ways that appeal to consumers emotionally. Rather than purely intellectual factors such as a product’s price or efficiency, consumers’ deep inner drives are driven by this type of advertising. As such, most campaigns are not simply looking to elicit an emotional response, but to convince a customer that the product will meet their emotional needs.
Often, the first step in emotional branding is to develop a brand personality. Consumers, in general, do not connect with a company’s logo or tagline. They do, however, respond to the representation of human personality traits. Using a spokesperson, for example, can often personalize a company. If that rep is caring or empathetic, those traits are also attributed to the organization.
Another way to develop emotional branding is through shared commitments to social causes. When a company shows that it supports a cause, a potential consumer who supports that cause is more likely to buy from that company. Great care is generally taken with these types of marketing techniques to avoid the appearance of pride or insincerity. As such, charitable contributions are usually accompanied with volunteer service by company employees. In cases where a company wants to appear greener, energy saving and recycling programs can be established within the organization.
Once an organization develops a likeable personality and creates a shared interest with its customer base, it needs to create an emotional need for its product or service. This is usually accomplished by inclusion. For example, if a company has developed its emotional brand to include the personality trait of generosity, it is assumed that a person who does business with that company is also charitable. As such, individuals who feel an emotional need for kindness are more likely to buy from that organization.
The need to be physically attractive is a common emotional desire that is often addressed by emotional branding. Using an attractive spokesperson is a powerful tool here. Advertisements for products such as weight loss aids and cosmetics often assume that the customer will attribute the spokesperson’s attractiveness to the use of the advertised product. In theory, these individuals buy the product with the assumption that it will make them more attractive as well.
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