Customers like to think that they are savvy and make logical purchasing decisions based on what is best for them. Of course, with access to the internet and all its numerous features that allow them to compare and contrast everything they could possibly think of, they do. However, there is still a little twist.
As Elmer Wheeler once pointed out, ‘Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle.’ This implies that people are rarely buying the product itself, but rather the emotion they associate with purchasing and owning it. In the materialistic world, with products being in abundance, people are emotion starved. Unless an item makes them feel a certain way, they do not want it.
What Is Emotional Branding?
Emotional branding is one of the key parts of a broader emotional marketing strategy that aims at converting customers into brand advocates through establishing deep, meaningful relationships with them.
Usually, emotional branding refers to the practices brand managers use to evoke emotions in their target audience and, therefore, create a bond between the brand and the particular individual. If the two parties - the business and its clients - happen to be on the same emotional wavelength, the likelihood of them sticking together multiplies exponentially!
Emotional Branding Vs. Emotional Advertising: What’s the Difference?
Now that you have an understanding of what emotional branding is, it is time to draw a line between emotional branding and emotional advertising. While the two may seem pretty similar at first glance, there are some noticeable differences upon more careful examination. In fact, emotional advertising is just one of the components that constitute emotional branding as a whole.
Emotional advertising refers to the process of creating advertisements that would evoke emotions in the customers seeing those, and, therefore, manipulating them into feeling more connected to your brand without even realising it. Each and every emotional ad contributes towards the establishment of the brand identity, which, too, can be affected by the emotional branding practices.
Why Does Emotional Branding Work?
Apparently, the concept of emotional branding coincides with the hierarchy of needs, the model introduced by Maslow. There are five stages of different needs - starting from the basic ones and ending with the most complex ones. In order to be able to work their way up the pyramid and meet their emotional needs, esteem and self-actualisations, humans need to cover their physiological needs (food, shelter, air, water) and societal needs first. Each stage is associated with some emotions that brands can appeal too, and build emotional branding.
The Core Elements of Emotional Branding
There are numerous components that emotional branding consists of, but all of them can be classified into three different categories:
Ethos (Appeal to credibility and ethics)
Pathos (Appeal to empathy)
Logos (Appeal to logic and reason)
What Are the Benefits of Emotional Branding?
First and foremost thing you need to know about your customers is that 50% of a brand experience is based on emotion. This alone should be convincing enough to stimulate you to get your emotional branding in check. However, there is, sure thing, more to it!
Emotional branding is one of the most popular marketing practices employed by a number of businesses around the world. This implies that it has a number of advantages. Here are the top benefits emotional branding can have:
It fosters strong, meaningful and mutual connections between the business and its clients. By interacting with the clients’ subconscious, the brand practicing emotional branding creates a strong association in the customers’ brains and, therefore, stays in their mind for a longer time.
It gives the brand a human touch. By using emotional branding, you give your business a voice that does not fit into the image of ‘heartless’ corporations. Instead, you show your clients that you are, indeed, capable of feeling. This evokes sympathy and, therefore, makes your brand more attractive to your target audience.
It raises brand loyalty. We trust the businesses we have some memories with. It is all about how they make us feel. If a business manages to make us experience some positive emotions, we will be coming back to them again and again.
It differentiates you from the competition. The motions you evoke in your clients are always unique and intrinsic to your brand, and your brand only. In fact, emotional branding, when done correctly, is so powerful, it can become your USP.
It simplifies the creation and distribution of relevant, personalised content. Emotions that you want to deliver to your clients within your emotional branding strategy should be a decent guidance into the content you need to craft and disseminate on your communication channels.
It improves the ROI of marketing campaigns as opposed to the campaigns that do not use emotional branding techniques. By providing more specific campaigns to your target audience, you can expect a higher return on investment as the same amount of effort is likely to result in a better performance.
It has a positive effect on brand awareness levels. Not only can your emotional branding activities maintain your existing customer base but they can also enrich it. If you manage to drive the correct emotions in your clients, they are likely to spread the word about your business, powering a word-of-mouth marketing campaign. The latter has a strong effect on improving brand awareness and growing the audience of the brand.
Emotional branding is a broad field of marketing with a lot of different techniques. However, there is one thing that can be said about all of them collectively - they work! Because of the importance of emotion and feelings for people, emotional branding becomes a great tool for building robust and long-lasting connections between the businesses and their clients.
Author Bio: Bethany Langston is a blogger, a journalist and just an ambitious writer. She always enjoyed covering numerous topics from politics to relationships, so she decided to make writing her career.