The Death of Reason: Is The Growing Focus on Emotion in Advertising Misguided?
In this guest post, Alex Vishney, managing partner at marketing research consultancy, Blaze, explains why it’s a mistake to rely too heavily on emotional marketing as the driver to 
consumer decision making.
You may have heard the analogy of the elephant and the rider. It is meant to represent the relative power of the unconscious, instinctive, irrational, emotional mind (called “System 1”) over the rational, slower, more calculating conscious mind (System 2).
In the analogy, the elephant represents System 1, the rider System 2, and the point is that, although the rider has the perception of control, the real decision of which way to go resides with the much more powerful elephant.
In other words, the theory suggests that our decisions, thoughts and behaviour are supposedly driven by irrationality, emotion, instinct and stereotype much more so than by reason or logic.
Outside of habituation, mapping exactly where rationality or emotionality dominate our consumer actions is a hard ask; individual state versus trait is quite possibly the overriding factor and nearly impossible to anticipate for any given ‘purchasing pattern deviation moment’. Not entirely impossible though, just need plenty of individual-focused data feeding the predictives.
What worries me about compartmentalising work based on its ’emotionality’ or ‘rationality’ is that it doesn’t address the qualitative aspect of the communication itself. But that IPA research with its sample drawn from ‘effectiveness’ will make for interesting reading.
This piece has me thinking specifically about the current landscape of insurance marketing based on ‘fear of not insuring’ against ‘saving money on premiums’. And the subcategories of the latter being ‘This is how much you’ll save’ against ‘This is why you’ll save’. Which approach is actually more ‘correct’?
Fantastic thought-provoking article Alex.
You’re quite right that its an artificial divide.
An ad can be 100% rational and 100% emotional at the same time. A potent fact or demonstration can evoke strong emotional responses.
Or, to put it another way: facts have feelings, too.
I like emotional ads as much as anyone – I’ve made quite a few – but I get annoyed when advertisers go splashing about in the shallow end of mawkish sentimentality, trying to ‘own’ an emotion at the expense of product or brand based reasons to purchase.
Or worse, try to ‘leverage up’ to a core emotion that’s way above the category, never mind their brand.
Yes, it’s hard to find the right balance. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
I’ve never ever heard of anyone client or agency or research side say emotion is all that counts
“What is concerning is that the emotional, non-rational mind is quickly being elevated to the position of absolute ruler over consumer behaviour, with some claiming that emotion is all that matters”
Nearly everyone gets there is s balancing act.
Great article Alex.
I completely agree that ‘one size’ fits few.
However, I’m not seeing the same ‘trend’ of a growing focus on ’emotion’, I’m seeing a fad.
A fad probably a result of ’emotional’ ads winning plaudits … cf John Lewis / St John of God.
‘Creative’ agency creative people appear to be pushing emotive for that reason and poor clients that do not have the brand equity to own emotive are falling for it – at the moment.
John Lewis and StJohn of God ads won effectiveness awards as well as Creative awards. JL because they are now watercooler events and go beyond ‘selling stuff’, and StJoG because a small budget needed to kick people in the teeth to be noticed.
There are many ‘agencies’ ruled by the Creative dept expecting the ‘suits’ to sell their next award entry. The better agencies are run by people that understand advertising in it’s marketing context, and sell ads that will be effective with the appropriate balance of head and heart.
That said, as a consumer of ads, emotional more entertaining / noticeable than the rational ones.
And if attention is the first rule the elephant can be startled by a mouse. But the rider needs a hell of a budget to get him to think.
Its probably also worth pointng out the burn out effect in emotional advertising. If you hammer the audience with the same trick over and over again, they tune out. Most advertising for the banking industy creates cynacism rather than aimed for emotional response.
We are only sat on an Elephant if the creative is any good.
With most emotional advertising we are just sitting on a Mouse.
It doesn’t matter if an ad campaign is rational or emotional, quality and authenticity is the key.
I’d suggest reading their follow up study: The long and the short of it (same authors).
It’s a far more in-depth analysis of the relationship between long-term and short-term effects.
They tend to use the language of ‘brand’ and ‘activation’ which I think is far more helpful and less ambiguous. Everything should ultimately sell, but what drives long-term value creation vs. short-term bursts in sales are fundamentally different. Worth a read. And maybe a few re-reads.
I think the moral of the story is: blindly following any strategy, or theory, is wrong.