Have you ever met a person or brand leader who you’ve instantly felt drawn to? Their charisma has inspired you? Their energy, warmth and humour has made you laugh. Their story has made you cry or has probably inspired you no end. Whatever they’ve shared has pulled at your heartstrings because they’ve tapped into your emotions, with a genuine humanity and honesty that’s stirred your soul.
This same emotion can be transferred to businesses and campaigns. Big corporates know this and spend millions of dollars crafting the most impassioned campaigns to tug on your heart. Nike and Apple are especially skilled at hiring the best ad agencies and creative directors to weave stories that capture your imagination.
In essence, brand awareness and brand love is centred on emotion. The leaders we love the most make us feel great inside. The ads we watch are designed to get you where you feel it the most. But simply having a great emotive campaign, or being an inspiring leader doesn’t mean you will out last the competition.
You need more than just the #feels. You need to have a meaningful, purposeful focus that seeks to love on people at every touch point from personal to social media, experiential, online and offline. From the tone in which you speak to others, to the tone of voice online and even to how you deal with client concerns as a business or brand leader.
One of the best emotive responses I’ve seen recently was on an episode of my guilt-binge show, Botched. It features renowned plastic surgeons Paul Nassif and Terry Dubrow fixing plastic surgery ops gone wrong. Dr Dubrow had a patient who was deeply concerned about the outcome of their surgery and disappointed with the results she’d received. How he dealt with her disappointment was a teaching moment for me.
He told her (paraphrased): “Tell me everything about your disappointment and don’t hold back. I’m with you every step of the way and I’ll hold your hand until you’re comfortable and happy with this journey.”
I thought it was admirable. He didn’t deflect her concern, ‘manage’ it away or pretend it wasn’t legit. He listened and addressed her concerns. He even gave her a hug at the end of it.
To be an emotive brand, you need to make sure everything you do is meaningful, genuine and real. Emotive brands are rarer than emotional brands for many reasons. Emotive brands don’t just create emotional ads. They forge meaningful – and valuable – emotional connections at every touchpoint. They are consistent with the emotions they elicit and make sure that these same emotions ring true through everything they do. Every touchpoint counts: the tone of voice your employees have on customer service calls, how your packaging and website make people feel, how people within your office talk with one another, how leaders welcome new employees, the emotions customers have when they first visit your store, office, warehouse, etc.
Being a truly emotive brand requires building an emotional experience that resonates with the customer at every point of their journey, which is no easy task. It requires a strategic mindset and complete alignment around what emotions your brand wants to elicit and how you plan to create and foster those emotions across all platforms, touch points, and brand engagements. When brands do figure out how to successfully behave as emotive brands, they are able to connect more meaningfully with their audiences. This means people are more likely to remain loyal and engaged, and ultimately feel bonded to the promise of the brand in the long-term.
Insight Inspiration:
When people talk about a great experience, it’s not the lights, sounds, flavours, colours, views, shapes and ambience they’re labelling as amazing – it’s how they all come together and made them FEEL. That’s the ‘it’ factor of emotion – it transcends language to hit you right in the heart. You may not know everything about your brand, but you know how you want it to make people feel. That emotional impact is your compass.
Let it guide your decision-making and it will undoubtedly lead you to a place of business and brand transformation.
