The power of emotion
Appeal to the heart not the mind
When you buy something at a store, what do you consider most? Is it the price of the product, quality or the design? The author of this article claims that it is the how the product of the brand moves the heart fo the consumers.
Compared to the signature shoes of Dennis Rodman (one of NBA’ all time trouble maker), author felt more comfortable and relieved to pick Grant Hill’s (a model NBA citizen) signature shoes. It was not the design or the price of the shoe that affected the authors mind. It was the feeling that the shoe created affected the author to pick the shoe.(Though the Rodman's sina
ture shoes looked more cool.)McDonald’s was one of the first advertisers to understand this effect of feeling. Decades ago when their competitors were competing on the size of their burger or the thickness of their shakes, McDonald’s was busy trying to build an emotional image of all of the families enjoying the moment around the fast food restaurant .Instead of making their consumers to accept or reject the rational claims being made by competitors, McDonald’s made them hard to argue against and easy to embrace. Though as the time went by the consumers have become more sophisticated, the underlying principle remains true. Also, today, a lot of brands are using this tactics.
Too many advertisers think that the consumers are rational people and try to approach with a rational tactic. Sure, features, benefits, and cost/value equations enter into it, but never do they do all the heavy lifting. This is well applied to the categories such as soft drinks, beers and automobiles which the brands face a high degree of competitive parity. This is because they simply don’t have unique rational claims to make, so they have to win people’s hearts instead of their minds.
We have learned in class that the consumer’s emotion plays a big role in marketing. I also have experience buying products relying on my emotion rather than rationale. To be a good marketer, we need not only to learn about the basic marketing skills but also understand the emotion and the feeling of human being.
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