Emotionally Intriguing=The Challenge of Creating Something Bigger

Personally, there is little more in life that I enjoy more than a truly good commercial or a brand full of spirit beyond its clearly tangible benefits. Yes, I am a commercial nerd. While most of my peers are desperate to have DVRs that allow them to rewind through commercials, I am constantly on the search for the world’s most intriguing and successful commercials. Particularly, my personal favorite commercials tend to be those aimed at targeting the more emotional side of consumers. Over the years, this has led me to wonder: what exactly works in emotional advertising and what is lost on most consumers? To get some answers, I referred back to the film “The Persuaders” and studied the segment on “Emotional Branding.” I also looked into to a recent study surrounding this issue and informally surveyed some people on my own.

The film “The Persuaders” documented advertising’s move into the emotional segment. By the 90’s, consumers had pretty much decided that all products were fairly equivalent, meaning that each and every paper towel will clean up spills, each laundry will get your clothes relatively clean, etc. As such, brand managers and marketers became desperate to find a way to truly set themselves apart from all other companies trying to win over consumers. In an effort to “go against the tide” so to speak, companies began digging down in an effort to create a deeper relationship with consumers through emotionally positioning their brand. Such emotional positioning required emotional commercials, the very topic of my intrigue. As some companies began testing the “emotional waters” and found some initial success, more and more companies jumped on board until emotional advertising and branding where the norm. However, where as emotional branding and advertising has worked miracles for brands like Hallmark and Coca-Cola, the vast majority of brand attempting to reach consumers’ emotional sides have failed miserably. This leads us to wonder why certain brands experience so much success while others just cannot seem to tap into this part of the market. This disparity among the successes realized by various brands through emotional advertising experts has led many to be skeptical as to whether such advertising and positioning truly works. And what is the true essence of a successful emotional promotional campaign?

Perhaps Kevin Roberts, advertising expert and author of “Lovemarks” can provide at least some of the answers. Roberts has full faith in the concept of emotional advertising and positioning. He fully believes that companies can realize huge gains if they successfully implement emotional branding by ensuring that they “create loyalty beyond reason and infused with sensuality and mystery.” As an example of a brand that has done an excellent job of creating this emotional element in their positioning and promotions, Roberts pointed to one of my favorite all time commercials about General Mills’ cereal Cheerios. I couldn’t find a link to the commercial itself, but basically its clearly Christmas time and the commercial features a grandmother talking to her very young grandson. The grandson has Cheerios spread across the tray on his highchair, and his Grandma uses those Cheerios to map out where all of his family members are while the grandson vainly attempts to eat the Cheerios from her. In the end, she tells her grandson that no matter we’re they all are, “we’ll always be together for Christmas.” This is arguably one of the most successful commercials of all time, and it has become a staple in American culture. Roberts argues that this campaign works because an image of mystery surrounding Cheerios was created. However, I beg to differ. So many emotionally geared commercials and campaigns fail, causing me to think that there is something more important than just creating “mystery.” In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I think that what’s important is expressing what exactly is being sold, but in a manner that allows the consumer to connect with what is being sold on a higher level. The Cheerios commercial touches our hearts in its references to the importance of family and being together on the holidays. However, more importantly the commercial also focuses specifically on the cereal itself and the cereal is an intricate part of the emotional expression. This allows the consumer to be able to easily associate the emotions triggered while watching the commercial with Cheerios itself. To further understand my personal opinion, I would suggest referencing Liberty Mutual’s current commercial campaign. An example can be found by visiting the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMwoexR1evo. I love the idea behind these commercials, but I think that the execution is, at best, poor. While the commercial time and time again leaves the consumer with “warm fuzzies,” it does a terrible job of letting the consumer know early on what this commercial is supposed to be selling. In fact, unless you are a commercial junkie like myself, chances are you have seen this commercial time and time again but cannot name who the company is behind the advertisement. I cannot even begin to estimate the number of times that I have described these commercials to friends and family members, only to hear them say, “I love those commercials. What are they for again?” I maintain that the fundamental difference between Liberty Mutual’s emotionally driven commercials and General Mills’ Cheerios is that the Cheerios commercial ensures that consumers know up front what the focus of the commercial is. It is clear that the Grandmother and her Grandson are sharing a priceless moment over a tray of Cheerios, and that those Cheerios are an essential element in their conversation. However, Liberty Mutual’s commercials fail to introduce what the commercial is supposed to be about until the last couple of seconds. By that time, consumers find themselves scratching their heads wondering what this commercial is really supposed to be about. Also, because the Liberty Mutual’s brand and services are not incorporated into the commercial itself from the beginning, consumers later find themselves at a loss as to who sponsored those “warming” commercials.

Lastly, I would briefly like to discuss an interesting article that I recently read that relates to this topic. The article is entitled “Emotional, not factual, ads win skeptic consumers, study shows” and can be found at the following link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/29174.php. This article suggests that emotional marketers may have found their perfect audience: skeptics. This could be a result of skeptics’ overexposure to informational ads that have only served to disappoint them over time. It is these very skeptics that have been every advertiser’s worst nightmare for years. They distrust advertisements and never give them the time of day. Consequently, they can be an extremely difficult market to reach. However, these skeptics seem to be more trusting of emotionally appealing advertisements. With Generation Y’s well-established skeptic consumers having more and more purchasing power daily, it is extremely important that marketers and advertisers learn how to effectively carry out an emotional advertising campaigns and positioning. It will be necessary to reach this market. However, if not executed properly, it will still undoubtedly fail. As such, companies that can learn how to make emotional advertisements work for them like General Mills has will realize huge gains, especially as more and more skeptic consumers enter the marketplace.

"When You're Downtown..."

“The Persuaders” was an extremely intriguing film covering many important aspects addressed by marketers on a day to day basis. For example, in a world now overwhelmed with advertisements, how does any one company manage to break through? Also, do consumers make purchase decisions? The answers to such questions are pivotal to any company trying to survive in today’s crazed business environment. As such, marketers need to come up with specific means of gathering important marketing research data to figure out how to more effectively market to consumers. “The Persuaders” explored several of today’s marketing approaches, including the infamous Dr. Rapaille’s controversial method.

Dr. Rapaille’s believes that consumers purchase decisions are driven by natural instinct buried in our deep unconscious. For example, Dr. Rapaille questioned why anyone living in Manhattan would ever think that a Hummer intended for off-roading would be an appropriate choice of vehicle. He maintains that anyone thinking logically would never purchase a Hummer if they were living in a city such as Manhattan, and therefore, there have to be underlying factors affecting our purchase decisions. It is these underlying natural instincts and impulses that drive us to act a certain way that are the focus of Dr. Rapaille’s work. In order to identify these natural instincts, Dr. Rapaille performs a three phase experiment in which he seeks to understand our true beliefs and natural drivers. Essentially, his process is a psychic journey in which he seeks to move past participants’ more conscious emotions and into their primal cores. It is here that the doctor believes we actually make our purchasing decisions.

In the first stage, the doctor seeks to understand the participants by reaching out to their cortex. Here, he is giving participants a chance to demonstrate how smart they are and to get comfortable within the setting. For example, in the film Dr. Rapaille was trying to uncover what the true drivers of “luxury” are for consumers. As such, in the first stage he would ask participants questions like what words are used whenever someone tries to sell “luxury” to them. Then, in the second stage the doctor seeks to reach into participants’ emotions. He does this by asking participants to tell intriguing stories. For example, in the film Dr. Rapaille asked participants to tell him a story as if they are a 5-year-old from another planet. After this phase of the experiment, participants start to become confused, and the doctor likes it that way. It allows him to proceed on to the third phase of the study in which Dr. Rapaille has participants lay on the floor, relax, and go back to the mindset they have upon first waking up in the morning. Dr. Rapaille claims that respondents can then remember things they had completely forgotten about, and he uses this to help him identify our primal urges, or what he calls “reptilian hot buttons.” Dr. Rapaille then says that he can use the “reptilian hot buttons” to develop the “code” for what is being studied. This “code” is the result of these primal urges, and it is what drives us to act as we do. For example, the “reptilian hot button” uncovered by Dr. Rapaille when studying cheese in America versus France allowed the doctor to assist a French cheese company break into the American market. According to the doctor, the “reptilian hot buttons” led to a “code” of “dead” for cheese in America, but in France, the “code” for cheese is “alive.” As such, cheese in America has to be marketed and sold very differently than it is in France. For example, Dr. Rapaille says that his uncovering of the “reptilian hot buttons” for cheese in America brought upon the necessity of storing cheese in plastic bags and then refrigerating that cheese. According to the doctor, the plastic bags represent body bags and the refrigerator represents a morgue, thus correctly matching the “code” of “dead” for cheese in America.

Personally, I think that Dr. Rapaille is doing an excellent job of ripping of large corporations. He analysis of cheese and comparisons of plastic bags as the “body bags” and refrigerators as morgues was enough to tip me off that he is running a huge scam. Additionally, I have never been one for the Freud school of thought regarding urges from the subconscious. I don’t think that what attracts me to cheese versus another is whether that cheese appears “dead” to me, and I am more than happy to purchases cheeses not refrigerated and overly packaged. In fact, I prefer it. Also, Dr. Rapaille claims that by the end of the third phase, participants are able to remember things for 30 years back that they have long since forgotten. I think that participants “remember” things because they feel pressured to, much in the same way that Freud absurdly convinced so many of his patients that they had been sexually assaulted. I believe that there certainly are underlying factors that influence our purchase decisions, but I think that a lot of it has to be examined on a more personal level. We all have our own perceptions of everything we come across. This is how we define our world. It’s also how we define what products and services are important to us. In my opinion, to truly understand what drives us, you have to begin by respecting that people are individuals, and our decisions are far too complex to be summed up by a “reptilian hot button” or simple “code” word.

“The Persuaders” also spent a good time covering a then-newly created airline called “Song.” Song Airlines was headed up by parent company Delta, but the creators and marketers of Song decided that they wanted to create something vastly different from the feel of Delta for Song. After conducting focus groups and evaluating its marketing research, the creators of Song decided that a very important segment was being overlooked in the airline industry: women. Now in theory, I think that Song had a fairly good idea; however, once put into place, Song Airlines essentially destroyed itself. To begin with, the idea of creating an airline targeted at women is intriguing, but I think that perhaps it was created too early. Women are becoming more educated and more independent. Their new levels of education and independency combine to give them the opportunity to spend more money and spend more solely on themselves. As such, an airline catered to women is in theory a good idea, but I think that it’s still a bit too early to make a move for this segment. Also, although Song might have been on to something in targeting women, Song was definitely targeting the wrong type of woman. The woman identified as Song’s target customer, or “Carrie,” sounds like she would be traveling almost exclusively with her family. She doesn’t sound like the kind of person who would be making frequent business trips and thus demanding services catered towards her specifically. In fact, Song defined “Carrie” as a married mother, and as such, she will need an airline that also caters to her husband’s and children’s needs. Additionally, even if they would have gotten it right by targeting the career-driven, independent woman, they would have had trouble finding a consistently loyal customer base. Airlines make a lot of revenue by striking deals with companies to provide their travel accommodations. However, such a deal could be very difficult for an airline like Song because companies would certainly not want to encourage, or even force, their male employees to use an airline designed specifically for women. And even if Song targeted predominantly female professions and companies, there will always be male employees who will need travel assistance as well.

Aside from the target group the airline went after, the entire marketing campaign seemed to be a complete and total disaster. Worst of all were the terrible TV advertisements. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Andy Spade’s purse designs as much as the next woman. However, Andy is an expert when it comes to selling simple, classic purses and not airlines. His advertising idea to downplay Song’s features and instead search for the “soul” was awful. After all, a persistent theme in “The Persuaders” was that we as consumers are swarmed more than ever with a whole variety of advertisements. Add in the fact that we’re busier than ever and you have a bunch of consumers that just want advertisers to cut to the chase. The reality is that consumers are not going to expend the extra time and effort to research more into advertisements, and so you have to be up front with them. Also, asides from not articulating Song’s benefits, Andy’s advertisements didn’t even articulate what Song actually was. No one would have a clue from his ads that Song is an airline, and so how could the creators have anticipated anyone to seek out their services? The company even became aware of this a year into operations when it discovered that consumers recognized its advertisements, but had no idea what the advertisements were even supposed to be advertising for. Also, Song went after the wrong venues when it came to advertising for its airlines. The airline was supposedly created for a married mother that sounded like your typical run-of-the-mill housewife, and yet they were advertising at concerts and night clubs. As a marketer the most important part of your job is to assure that your marketing efforts are reaching the right target audience, and this failure to pick the right venue definitely helps explain why Song failed miserably. Additionally, the other vague and abstract marketing efforts were lost on me. For example, the book with the words “Cheer, Cry, Vomit, Bitch and Hope” printed up the spine in an effort to intrigue customers through stories that I suppose were once again aimed at showing the “soul” of Song was outrageous. As a female, I would never even be enticed to read such a book, not to mention the fact that I would never then use it when making my travel decisions. The bottom line is that Song was trying too hard. Its marketers and creators wanted to create something revolutionary, and they thought that they had to be completely revolutionary in all of their marketing efforts as well. However, in the end it was too out-there and just ended up getting lost on consumers.

Experience+Expertise=An Interesting Mix

The chapter from Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink entitled, “Kenna’s Dilemma: The Right-and Wrong-Way to Ask People What They Want” definitely contained some extremely useful marketing material, especially in the interest of customer insights. Malcolm Gladwell once again provided incredible insights into how people and all of the mysteries surrounding how we as consumers make our purchase decisions. And while I found all of his lessons to be highly intriguing, I especially noticed some important marketing implications in the lessons entitled “The Blind Leading the Blind” and “The Gift of Expertise”

In the lesson, “The Blind Leading the Blind,” Malcolm Gladwell discusses why even though consumers seemed to prefer Pepsi’s taste to that of Coke’s after just a couple of sips, Coke has still remained the market leader after all of these years. Initially, these results may shock people, but the fact is that our purchase decisions are determined by more than just one sip. The fact is, our purchase decisions center around the entire experience, not just the actual product itself. We want a product that we associate as being something bigger, and consumers just seem to love the packaging of Coke. For these consumers, it’s about what that cola represents, and how it makes you feel to consumer it. This exact lesson was also demonstrated in a book I read entitled “Chasing Cool.” This experiment also involved a taste test, but among vodkas with very different pricing strategies. The experiment had consumers taste Grey Goose’s vodka and Smirnoff’s vodka, and then consumers were asked which one they preferred. Interestingly enough, consumers preferred Smirnoff’s taste equally as often as they preferred Grey Goose’s. However, Grey Goose vodka is a lot more expensive than Smirnoff and was also the market leader in terms of sales. This experiment initially left marketers baffled. Vodka can only be distilled in one way, making all vodkas virtually equal, and yet the most expensive vodka was eating up most of the market share. It didn’t make any sense, until you took in the experience as a whole. Grey Goose vodka is made in France and shipped in wooden crates. Its bottle features frosted glass, suggesting elegance and luxury. So while although they may taste very similarly, Grey Goose’s creator has worked to create a different sort of experience for vodka drinkers, one of an exquisite and exclusive experience. This validates the idea that it’s not enough just to have a good product. You have to create the whole experience. It’s about going the full 9-yards and not coming up even an inch short. Every marketer would be smart to keep this in mind while designing marketing programs and working to promote products and services. Without the experience, you end up coming up generic.

The second lesson that I found to be very insightful was “The Gift of Expertise.” This lesson talked about how we have to be careful not just to rely on how consumers react to a new product or service. The reason is that consumer often cannot articulate why they feel a certain way. As such, their “feelings” can be of limited usefulness to them if we are not careful. However, experts can easily identify their reactions to a new offering and can easily articulate why they feel the way that they do. This is why Kenna’s music was such a hit with industry experts while consumers found it unappealing in the least. Occasionally then, it becomes necessary that experts embrace their expertise and ignore the research. For instance, the movie Titianic was expected to be one of the biggest flops of all time. In fact, it was estimated that by the time the cast and crew were paid that the film would actually take on a loss. However, James Cameron knew that his film was brilliant. His expertise was enough to encourage him to take a chance, and as a result, he released one of the top grossing films of all time. This is why we have to be careful to not fully rely on marketing research results in deciding what will be big. Sometimes in taking a chance and trusting our expertise we really manage to strike it bit. However, by the same token this sort of groomed insightfulness may also lead experts to become too enthusiastic about offerings and forget to think like a consumer. For example, when Apple released the first ever PDA, it flopped big time. Industry experts were shocked because to them this was an incredible technological offering. However, what they were forgetting is that consumers are often hasty to take on a new offering, especially when that new offering is radically different and will require them to acquire new skills. As such, there became a discrepancy between the values experts placed on such an offering and the perceived value consumers associated with that same offering. This necessitates a certain degree of marketing research to gain insights. However, we have to be careful to really evaluate that research and to work harder to help consumers articulate their reactions in a more meaningful way.

While Malcolm Gladwell may not have directly intended for this chapter to relate so eloquently to marketing, he definitely did manage to incorporate a lot of deep insights into marketing’s most important aspect: people. Without a thorough knowledge of consumers and how they really think, feel and act, we cannot possibly expect to be able to successfully market anything from chewing gum to brand new high-tech electronics. It’s important to have insights enough to understand that often as consumers we cannot articulate why we feel the way that we do and that sometimes rapid change scares us. This necessitates us sometimes taking “baby steps” with consumers, especially when introducing rapidly different products and services. This also creates the necessity for further research into way consumers behave in the manner that they do and to always keep in mind that for consumers it is all about the EXPERIENCE. However, it is additionally important to remember that as consumers we are the driving forces for new products, ideas and industries. As such, it becomes increasingly important to sometimes be willing to take a chance, just like CBS did with The Mary Tyler Moore Show because it might just be that we have hit at a time when, as Bob Dylan would say, “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” and we don’t want to miss our shot.