Marketers have known for a long time how emotion can play a vital role in convincing people to buy their products or service. The classic duel of the Heart vs. the Brain has been in place since Humankind began. Advertisers have touched us in many ways to make us believe that their Brand stands for something unique and so we should support it over other competing Brands. Recently we saw a dramatic use of emotion to drive a whole country to make a major decision on its future. The United Kingdom BREXIT Leave Campaign is a classic demonstration of how an advertising campaign based on emotion can affect people and make them decide to change their future.
In 2014 the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology published research that showed Human Emotion is based on 4 basic emotions. They are HAPPY, SAD, AFRAID/SURPRISED and ANGRY/DISGUSTED. Advertisers have been using these 4 basic emotions to craft their selling messages very effectively. We all have our favourite commercials and I will discuss these later in this article. I would like to focus now on the recently completed “Leave Campaign” in the UK Referendum.
The advertising agencies handling the “Leave Campaign” knew from research how fed-up and afraid the British people were in their National situation. They knew that immigration was a huge issue. They knew that unemployment and concern about their social services were creating a high degree of uncertainty and frustration and that people felt that they had lost control over their country due to EU regulations. They decided to create a campaign that highlighted these key issues and built a selling message based on fear and frustration.
The communication strategy employed was to build the campaign around the message “Take Back Control” a simple and memorable message that would be easily understood. This approach capitalized on people’s fears that their country was no longer theirs and that the people needed to take action to keep United Kingdom British. One of their key advertising vehicles was a Billboard campaign showing thousands of refugees streaming into the country with the headline “Breaking Point”. This powerful message encapsulated all the British fears of being over-run by thousands of people from other countries. Another powerful message employed using anger was the Painted Bus driving around the country with the message that 350 million pounds was being sent to the EU every year and that this should be used to support the National Health Service. These types of messages resonated with people and played into their fears and anger about the EU and they voted to leave.
Studies have shown that emotions are more effective and influential in touching consumers and make them more likely to act over using logic or information. Emotions are critical to making decisions and are a powerful driver in a person’s reaction to an advertising message.
Some of the greatest advertising campaigns have used emotions to touch people. Think of the Hallmark cards advertising- it was all built on touching people with emotion. Happiness and Sadness were used in their ads and they touched people. Recently we have seen some great ads using Happiness, which most advertisers prefer to use, as people who are happy tend to be active purchasers. The Android “ Friends Furever “ TV commercial is one of the most watched TV spots Ever! It shows the power of Friendship and Communication. Political parties use fear, anger and disgust very effectively as they have messages that make you reflect on a person or a party’s character and position and enhance your beliefs on that person or party. The current American Presidential campaign showcases many of these messages.
Marketers have known and have used emotion for years to build and maintain their Brands. Using emotion to touch people works and it will continue to be employed as an effective marketing tool.
