The Obsession With ‘Emotional Advertising’ is Missing the Point

Posted Oct 11 in Opinion tagged , , , , ,

Recently Millward Brown put out a white paper titled “Should my advertising stimulate an emotional response?” I applaud Millward Brown for trying to answer such a question – and the article is a good read, concluding unsurprisingly with ‘yes’ we should encourage an emotional response. However, to be frank, I think asking a different question would prove to be more useful.

Lately, the advertising industry has been obsessed with ‘emotional advertising’ and building an ‘emotional connection’. However, more progressive agencies are leaving the quest for emotional advertising behind – at a rate of knots. As Alex Bogusky puts it when talking about advertising – “Create something so funny, charming or useful that I can’t live without it”. In other words the gold bar is no longer ‘emotional advertising’, but something more meaningful to the consumer (or person).

We now live in a world where there is so much more available to us within the communications framework. Rather than just ‘emotional’ or ‘rational’ advertising – we can:

  • Make products (e.g. iphone applications) that act as communications.

  • Put on experiences (e.g events) that act as communications.

  • Provide useful content (e.g. a traffic or finance reports) that acts as communications.

  • Create games that act as communications (e.g. The Beatles game to sell more Beatles records).
Though technology, ideas and insight, all communications can now be useful, and worth interacting with – rather than just passively receiving it. And all communications can, if good enough, evoke a direct behavioural response. So why just let people passively receive an emotional message when we can encourage interaction with our brand. Or better yet, give people something of genuine utility that makes their lives better in some small way.

The focus should be on a behavioural response, not an emotional response. the question therefore could become

“Should my advertising stimulate a behavioural response”.
Then once you’ve answered ‘Yes’ to this the next question is:
“How do I use my advertising to stimulate a behavioural response”.
Then, the next question is:
“How do I use my advertising to stimulate a behavioural response that builds my brand?”

It’s much harder to create advertising that stimulates a behavioural response, and do this in a genuinely brand building way. However, it has the potential to be significantly more powerful. Once people chose to interact with the brand or message they have invested something of themselves into what you have to say / give.

We are about to see a rapid shift away from ‘emotional measures’ towards behavioural measures’ as the research industry catches up to where (only the progressive) advertising agencies are going.

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Comments

  1. Katie Harris

    Oct 12th, 2009

    …as the research industry catches up?

    When I’m researching advertising, I’m pretty much stuck with what the advertising agency/their client asks me to ‘measure’ against their objectives.

    We (ie researchers) don’t typically define the objectives.

    We might want to, but in this context, it’s not actually our within our remit.

  2. Dennis

    Oct 12th, 2009

    The only behaviour that *ultimately* matters = a sale, no?

  3. eskimon

    Oct 12th, 2009

    A resounding 'Yes!' to advertising that delivers real utility. It seems odd that it's taken us this long to realise that advertising isn't just about promotion, but can be a means to deliver distinct value of its own.

    I'm less convinced about your points on behavioural response though; not so much because I disagree with them, but because of what's involved.

    Advertising that follows the Pavolvian conditioned response model makes me uncomfortable. Surely it's better in the long run to encourage people to choose our brands, rather than simply buy or consume them as a result of some subliminal response?

    Even if we could train people to respond to advertising in this way, would it be the most sensible approach? Would people react against a perception that they were, in some way, being manipulated?

    Or is that just naive? Should we see every dollar as equal, and as long as the subliminal approach works, not get too worried?

    It'd be great to get your thoughts on this. We've been having a parallel debate over here on a similar subject, so it would be great to get your thoughts there too.

    Cheers, @eskimon

  4. Fritz Bachen

    Oct 12th, 2009

    Hi Katie, one of the things about the research industry is that it is by nature reactive. It would be good to see research agencies getting on the front foot more and proactively developing different research methods (of which many good ones do). The NPS is a great example of a behavioural question that measures brand health (and business performance).

    Hi Dennis sales is not the only behaviour that matters – if it was we would just offer massive discounts and drive people in store to purchase. The post is meant to raise awareness of how encouraging people to ACT not just RECEIVE is a potentially effective way to build a brand.

    Eskimon you make some interesting points – I'll go have a look later today.

  5. Katie Harris

    Oct 13th, 2009

    Hi Fritz

    Research methods and research measures are quite different things.

    Obviously, *what* to measure is best left to those who define the business/marketing objectives, ie the business itself.

    A good research agency will find the best, most efficient measurement method.

    And not to be picky …

    ; )

    …but I’m not sure that the NPS would be the best example here. I don’t have a point of view on it either way (not my area of expertise), but have heard/read much to the following effect;

    “The worst outcome has been the use of market research measures that, whilst certainly concise and inherently logical, are essentially worthless. Measures such as customer satisfaction, likelihood to repurchase, or the Net Promoter Score have now been roundly discredited as having little bearing on company performance. Marketers reporting such information to prove the effectiveness of their actions are increasingly having to ask themselves what the point is of making such measures move if nothing seems to change in real life? For example, it’s now known that customer satisfaction is a poor predictor of customer retention, acquisition or value, so why report it? Advertising measures such as likeability and newness have likewise been discredited”.

    Full text can be found at; http://www.allbusiness.com/company-activities-management/financial/12324539-1.html

    And…

    http://www.futurelab.net/blogs/marketing-strategy-innovation/2007/07/net_promoter_score_under_fire.html

    Anyway, NPS aside, I do think there are some forward thinking agencies doing some spectacularly interesting things; eg BrainJuicer’s predictive markets.

  6. Fritz Bachen

    Oct 13th, 2009

    Hi katie,

    The thing I love about the NPS was that it was created and put out into the public space free for people to use. It's hard to build a business model around it as it's so simple – and will therefore have detractors. However, I am also aware that it probably does have very real limitations.

    I agree with you on the Brainjuicer stuff.

    Both to mine are good examples of taking a more behavioural approach to research.

  7. Andrew Cox

    Oct 14th, 2009

    Hi Fritz,

    Interesting post.

    I think your view is related to one of our (MLA) core beliefs, best summed up by Hugh McKay (written in 1983 but still valid today!) as "Beware of believing that the way to change consumer behaviour is to change consumer attitudes. We have often misunderstood this point; we have often believed that consumer attitudes CAUSE consumer behaviour, and that in order to change behaviour we must first change attitudes. It is actually easier, in most cases, to change behaviour than to change attitudes, since attitudes tend to be the result (not the cause) of behaviour".

    cheers,
    Andrew

  8. Fritz Bachen

    Oct 14th, 2009

    Hi andrew, that perfectly summarises what i was saying. i guess im only 30 years late!

  9. brandhabits

    Oct 15th, 2009

    Very interesting post Fritz thanks.

    I agree. In fact I think an emotional or attitudinal response as an 'objective' is a cop out. Especially with the pressures marketers face re: accountability of every cent spent.

    We shouldn't be given permission to commission a branding campaign or measure success on an emotional response. Behaviour is an action, a goal that should result in sales or increase in frequency of usage / interaction.

    The Hugh McKay quote should be even more relevant today…

    Thanks again for the post,
    Andy

  10. Dominic

    Oct 19th, 2009

    Interesting thread. It is worth commenting that this is one of around 50 Knowledge Points that we at Millward Brown have written, trying to answer common client questions from our Knowledge Bank and databases.
    In the UK particularly, there is an emphasis on emotional advertising. The aim of this paper was not to say "yes to emotions", but rather – yes, to a balanced strategy. The most effective campaigns from a sales point of view are those with both rational and emotional elements.
    I think we agree that there has been too much of an obsession with emotional campaigns recently. I'm delighted to see you promoting debate on the topic.

  11. Fritz Bachen

    Oct 20th, 2009

    Nice one Dominic – agree its great to discuss this stuff. No hard and fast answers just points of view.

  12. Fritz Bachen

    Oct 20th, 2009

    Nice one Dominic – agree its great to discuss this stuff. No hard and fast answers just points of view.

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