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.
This is an insightful post.
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