New Marketing to Consumers Personal Emotions

Jena Catalano 

jc854716@ohio.edu 

 

Marketing agencies and advertising moguls are trying to form a deeper connection with their ideal target markets. Random advertising is no longer the case on the constant social media platforms and the world of digital content. Companies are trying to precisely place ads in the right spot for all of their users based on previous google searches and what they seem to be interested in their digital algorithms. However, digital algorithms and recent history are no longer the only cases to reach ideal markets. Companies are also using their consumers' emotions and mood to sell their products. 

The hypothesis of agencies using moods and emotions to sell products has been broadly tested. The effectiveness of psychographic targeting is being used by an increasing number of media and advertising companies. Emily Bell reports that last year the New York Times launched Project Feels, a departure for a media brand that prides itself on its emotional detachment, where the ads you are shown correspond to the emotion you feel. She continues to explain that there actually are mountains of science behind advertising like this. The emotions in reading articles were crowdsourced to build predictive algorithms and the New York Times data science team tested the outcome by dropping advertising that fitted the mood into the revenant article. The New York Times is just one of many who are currently looking at emotions to hook their target markets. 

 

Picture source: Smart 

 

There are many articles explaining how company's should move into emotional marketing to really target their audience. According to Allie Decker for HubSpot, first impressions of humans form in a matter of seconds and its the same for a product or brand, and marketing emotion can help shape those impressions. Studies show that people rely on emotions, rather than information, to make decisions. According to the Advertising Research Foundation, 'likeability' is the measure that best predicts whether an advertisement will increase a brand's sales. Emotions are one reason why we gravitate toward brand name products over generics- big brands pump a steady stream of advertising dollars into branding initiatives. Positive emotions toward a brand have far greater influence on consumer loyalty than trust and other judgments. 

Emotional responses in marketing strongly influence a consumer's intent and decision to buy more than the content of an ad or marketing material. Decker continues to explain that in order to successfully put emotion in marketing, companies must know their audience and know which emotions would resonate most, then align them with their marketing goals and the emotional marketing will be effective.