Emotional Branding

Emotional branding is supposed to make sure customers stay loyal for the long haul!

Each marketer knows that branding is very important – it allows customers familiar with your brand to identify it amongst all the competitors. The success of all such brands is about more than just the logo, it's about forming an emotional bond with their customers.

Image credit: Top 100 brands in 2011 according to Interbrand

With so much emotion involved in the decision making, it’s easy to see how creating an emotional connect with the customers makes a direct contribution towards building profitability.

Emotional branding distinguishes companies from their competitors clearly and helps to create and maintain deep relationships between brands and consumers.

Only an insight-based and personalized approach towards marketing can form a strong enough connection with the brands that evoke a personal, and emotional reaction in the customers.

Developing an emotional bond with the customers requires more than just good marketing – a company involved in emotional branding puts the needs of the customers ahead of the product it sells.

The emotional branding concept

Consumers associate themselves with the brands they feel reflect their identity and when they form a close emotional link to a brand emotions run high – for example, people who like Pepsi usually despise Coke!

Some Successful practitioners of emotional branding; Pepsi, Oil of Olay and Mercedes are a few major brands that require little introduction.

The brands which share a deep emotional connection with their customers end up getting unwavering consumer loyalty.

Apple is one another brand which illustrates the effectiveness of the emotional branding concept. Apple was almost done and dusted in the 1990’s but an amazing brand rejuvenation process propelled it to the super-brand status of the 21st century.

Apple succeeded in giving its products a humanized touch in the ever-evolving world of technology. In response to consumer anxiety about technology's high evolutionary speed, Apple managed to make its customers feel a part of the brand by making it clear that the brand understands their needs.

Brands like Google are also adopting an approach which is driven by emotional branding. The recent Google TV commercials show people emotionally connecting through Gmail. People feel bonded with such brands when these brands show they understand the needs and motivation of their customers.

One very important thing is to put customers first-

So, how do you show you’re putting your customers ahead of all the other things?

Make sure which emotion you want to target towards your audience. Emotional branding’s most important aspect is to define your target audience's core emotional need. It is important to communicate such insight through all your internal and external communications.

Make customers reach the desired emotionally bonded state; “I will only buy this brand”? This can be done by considering your customers’ needs - what they want, need and aspire to.

Creation of consistent communications which are centred on customers’ emotional needs. The message that the brand is responding to its customers' emotional needs should be reflected and reinforced at every point of contact; like customer relations, online content and social media engagement.

When customers form an emotional attachment to a brand, the strength of that connection is not very dissimilar to an attachment to another person. It becomes hard for that person to separate himself from one particular brand and begin a new relationship with another.

5 tips for successful emotional branding

Tip No. 1: Shift your focus

Think about people, rather than the consumers. Think about experience, rather than the products.

Think about dialogue, rather than the information delivery.

Knowing your customers makes it very easy. Studying about who they are and what they want helps

a company with emotional branding.

Tip No. 2: Create emotionally compelling material that it's eminently shareable

If you look at it, sharing is the best advertising out there, because it's both heartfelt (individual’s

decision) and free. One can't pay for the kind of sharing that takes place when a video or meme goes

viral. So it becomes important to examine what is working in the selected media—videos, ads, even

memes—and tailoring the messages to the required tone and approach.

Tip No. 3: Learn about the emotional hot buttons that get people to purchase

There are 16 hot buttons mentioned by Veteran marketer Barry Feig: desire for control, I'm better

than you, excitement of discovery, revaluing, family values, desire to belong, fun is its own reward,

poverty of time, desire to get the best, self-achievement, sex/love/romance, nurturing response,

reinventing oneself, make me smarter, power/dominance/influence, and wish fulfilment.

The list is big, but not everything on it works. Think about your ideal customers, pick out three or

four of those hot buttons whichever fit for those people, and focus your branding efforts around

them.

Tip No. 4: Telling a story

It is always about the story. Storytelling for centuries has made emotional connections. Stories aren't

only about facts. The best stories are those that stay with us long, even after the book is closed.

Same goes for storytelling in business: A brand would want its customer to keep thinking of it, so it

should be made sure that the story is used to make them feel what you want them to feel.

Tip No. 5: Leave them with a strong feeling, happy or sad

It's not about what information about your brand you want to leave your audience with. Actually it’s

about what is the feeling you want to leave them with.

Emotional connections have powerful financial consequences, they range from share-of-wallet to

frequency and amount of repeat business.

It’s not necessary to make a direct link between your product and the feeling you want to be

associated with it. You only have to link the both of them in your prospects' and customers' minds

References

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/26405/five-tips-for-effective-emotional-branding

http://www.smartinsights.com/online-brand-strategy/emotional-branding-means-customers-stay-loyal-for-the-long-haul/