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Emotions Drive Media Advertising
Advertisers and media buyers have had decades to hone their selling skills. However, influencing purchasing habits goes back before “media” was even a word.
If there was a market in an ancient society, then there was a seller pulling on your heartstrings to buy their product over their neighbor’s obviously inferior and too costly knockoff.
Advertising is a science that dictates sell to society’s emotions and not rational thoughts.
This means that your advertising should be more about your feelings towards the product and the brand rather than just how effective or efficient it is.
So as a creator or influencer, you need to focus on your emotional story and the quality of the service or product.
Think about mobile digital assistants. Google, Amazon, and Apple have all given their digital assistants feminine voices and names.
Why? Feminine qualities work to soothe our emotions and minds more than a voice that is harsh and forceful. These companies are playing to our emotional side rather than just our need for immediate information.
Target the Heart, Not the Head
The dish detergent Dawn has been using animals on its packaging to advertise how its product saves animals that suffer from oil spills. Dawn has left this campaign unchanged for over a decade.
Why? It remains unchanged because of its effectiveness in focusing your decision-making not on the quality of the product but whether your dish detergent promotes happy animals.
Their support of oil spill cleanup efforts has little to no significance to your dirty dishes at home. Yet, when you are at the supermarket, suddenly, it does.
Dawn is distracting your mind from the logical process of buying a soap that is both cheap and effective for the cleaning that you require. Instead of a math equation, Dawn pulls at your heart to distract your head.
Media Marketing Tip: When you can focus on the emotional side of the product. Not all products can easily be made into a similar story. So, if the emotional side isn’t there, don’t force it, or it may backfire.
Target Kids with Kids
Advertisers understand that to sell to a specific target demographic. They must use that target demographic. So, if a company makes toys, they use kids in the advertising to show how much fun their products are. The ads aren’t filled with parents talking to other parents, even though kids can’t buy toys. It is enough to sell directly to your audience, regardless of who they are.
This is applied beyond just the example of kids. For example, if you sell women’s hygiene products, why put men in the ad but for ironic purposes? It may seem like an obvious rule of advertising, but you need to make sure that you apply the rule consistently with certain products and sellers.
So, for example, if you are showing social proof of a denture’s product, it won’t help your sales if you don’t have dentures. Proper formatting and design of influencer campaigners are rooted in the emotional connection of believability. Your audience must believe that the portrayed emotions are real.
Media Marketing Tip: Play to the strengths you inherently have when picking products and services to advertise via social proof.
You will earn more commissions if you choose fewer products that are more believable to be something that you would use.
If you are marketing yourself as an influencer, then you are going to see your reels as the product. What can you do to incite an emotion from potential followers?
Look at the news. Look at primal needs in people. What do people want? What will help people relate to you. Can you give them what they need? Even if it is a few seconds relief form life’s stress.
Target Strong & Uncontrollable Emotions
Advertising pays for itself when selling items associated with strong or uncontrollable emotions. If you don’t have to say much to pull on a heart or insight a frustration, you don’t have to worry about winning your audience over. Most likely, by even introducing the topic, your work is done.
For example, which do you think is easier to sell, a pencil or a Valentine’s Day card? Sure, the difference depends on the seller, but in general, the Valentine’s Day card will be easier to sell because you can pull on more emotions than a pencil.
A pencil is only a utilitarian device until you start to apply it.
A holiday card associated with love, loss, and lust requires no added extension. It already is emotional.
Media Marketing Tip:
Use your social proof to focus on strong emotions. Some examples are love, loss, lust, paranoia, hate, anxiety, stress, etc. The benefit as a creator or influencer with strong emotions is that the feeling itself can be a problem fixed by the product.
