Emotional branding is a term used within marketing communication that refers to the practice of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer's emotional state, needs and aspirations. Emotional branding is successful when it triggers an emotional response in the consumer, that is, a desire for the advertised brand (or product) that cannot fully be rationalized. Emotional brands have a significant impact when the consumer experiences a strong and lasting attachment to the brand comparable to a feeling of bonding, companionship or love. Examples of emotional branding include the nostalgic attachment to the Kodak brand of film, bonding with the Jim Beam bourbon brand, and love for the McDonald's brand.Rossiter and Bellman
History The practice of branding originated during the ancient times when it was used by craftsmen to imprint trademarks on their goods. Branding does not only help identify, but it also ensures the quality of goods and services the buyer and trader will purchase from the manufacturer. In history, cattle and sheep were branded with hot irons to indicate ownership. Humans were also marked to classify their social status. Slaves were marked to indicate ownership and criminals are labelled distinctly to show disgrace. Similarly, victims of the World War II Nazi persecution were branded with numbers as they entered the concentration camps. However, despite the history filled with negative connotation linked with branding, it has been replaced with a positive and more commercialized meaning, which relates to the use of categorising brand goods and services.
The Industrial Revolution caused a massive shift in the future of branding as it transformed the importance and value of visual identification and trademarks. During this period, when railways and roadwork promoted a larger scope of product distribution in different areas, branding emerged as a way to differentiate various local and exported goods by simply using logos. This early form of branding created familiarity with different goods and it began to build trust among its loyal consumers. Companies were also focused on prioritizing the quality of product being distributed to ensure the return of loyal buyers and eventually, it will initiate growth of demand in the market.
Apart from ensuring the quality of the goods, tradesmen were able to invent different forms of advertisements to reach their target market. New target markets were formed since the revolution did not just trigger a shift in the marketing industry, but it also instigated a powerful impact on social classes. Tradesmen began to promote their products to the rising middle class because of their buying power as a mass market. Sellers were aware that not many people were able to read newspapers as this new social class enters the market, hence they expanded their creative thinking and began experimenting new ways to reach out to potential customers. For example, via men wearing placards, banners streaming from handheld poles and umbrella signs.
The rapid expansion of consumer goods post-World War II only increased existing goods in the market through amassed innovation, creating another major shift in branding, which is more focused on superior features, unique ingredients and functional benefits. Businesses began to think innovatively to create brand identity using their products in an attempt to associate lifestyle with brands. Pears soap brand became a highly demanded product because Thomas J. Barratt - known to be the "Father of Modern Advertising" – always looked for new ways to endorse the product. Barratt used different techniques of creative advertising that would help the soap product appeal to the mass. Barratt used a series of themed posters using imagery and catchphrases to associate the brand with quality and luxury. The series has a reoccurring theme and one of the posters used an iconic painting by John Everett Millais entitled "Bubbles". The painting was inspired by Millais' grandson and it was illustrated out of his delight for the child. The painting portrays pure innocence as Millais took the opportunity to paint his grandson because of how exquisite he looked while holding the pipe to make bubbles. Barratt then used the painting's meaning to be part of the Pears Soap message. The soap was added on the foreground pertaining that well-groomed middle-class children could enjoy domestic comforts and have aspirations of high society.
Companies began to adapt Barratt's technique to help achieve success on their own products, marking the beginning of modern emotional branding through the manipulation of human emotion to sell goods. Many businesses began to catch on to the trend of brand identity to distinguish their products from others in a growing market. In 2001, Marc Gobé wrote Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People to delve into the idea of "emotional branding". Gobé created the concept as part of his observation that there is a possible connection in an emotional level in a consumer-brand relationship. Gobé wrote, "Brands must recognize that their emotional identity is not only a result of ads and products, but also corporate policy and stances. The message can be sent in subtle ways that a company is supportive of the gay community. The key components are inclusivity, sophistication, and subtlety." He explains that emotional branding is distinct from the literal sense of brand awareness because of its ability to connect with its users on an emotional level from advertising to the physical product where it is able to make the user feel certain emotions the company aims to convey. It also reflects the company's internal culture as the business must have a harmony and unified goal to be able to successfully reach their target market.
Emotions towards a brand An emotional bond must be developed between the consumer and the product for a brand to be successful. Emotion is a mental state derived from ones intuitive feelings, which arise from reasoning, knowledge and cognitive appraisals of events or thoughts. Emotion may trigger actions depending on its nature and the reason for the person having emotion. Emotions happen as feedback of what one makes of a situation such as a brand consumption experience. Emotion is different from attitude, attitude is learned over time and controls responses whereas emotion is rarely consistent and occurs differently in separate events. Therefore, emotion is less consistent than attitude. Emotions arise on brand consumption and attitudes do not. Attitude is harder to change than emotion. Emotion plays a dominant role on the influence of brand experience and brand loyalty, "marketing practitioners need to pay more attention to customers emotions than to customers brand cognition" (Ding & Tseng, 2015). Emotions cause the positive or negative relationship between brand experience and brand loyalty. Consumers are likely to indulge in emotionally or culturally significant products. This is where experiential marketing is proven effective as it can attain brand loyalty by appealing to emotions. Emotions are triggered by fantasies, imagination, feelings, and pleasure experienced during consumption of an object. The promise of pleasure in consumption forms a powerful and ongoing motivation for consumers to want to experience the pleasurable feelings again and again. Consumers tend to be loyal to a brand because they want to re-experience the pleasurable feelings.
Customer emotional attachment Emotional branding is critical in marketing as customer emotional attachment towards a brand such as feelings of sympathy, sadness, pride, and anger results in distinct meaning of the individual's environment and therefore has unique motivational implications towards the choice and decision making. Marketers use tactics such as a young child or an animal to capture the hearts of the audience. This bond between the customer and the brand affects the behaviour of the customer, which in turn can foster the firm's profitability and the customer's value to the firm. It is a basic human need to want to form an attachment. Customers can form emotional attachments to an array of objects such as collectibles, gifts and of course brands. Despite the fact that an emotional attachment to an object is unlikely to be similar in strength as an attachment between two humans, the fundamental properties and behavioural effects of emotional attachment are similar. Emotional attachment to a brand is underpinned by love, affection and connection towards the brand. These components of emotional attachment convey that a customer with a stronger emotional attachment is likely to be more committed and emotionally attached to a brand. Emotional attachment at a higher level is likely to increase a customer's emotional need for the brand. As the customer becomes more united with a brand, they are likely to stay relatively close with the brand as the presence of the brand offers feelings of enjoyment, delight, and security. This concludes that a customer with higher levels of attachment to a brand is more likely to commit to being in a long-term relationship with the brand. Marketers need to ensure they are reaching the right kind of emotions within the consumer, which correlate with the brand.
Purpose The purpose of emotional branding is to create a bond between the consumer and the product by provoking the consumer's emotion. Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuaders speaks to the emotional response of consumers to advertising. It reads,"In the buying situation, the consumer generally acts emotionally and compulsively, unsubconsciously reacting to the images and designs that are associated with the product."Packard, Vance. The Hidden Persuaders. New York: D. McKay, 1957. Print. The notion that emotion is not only associated with compulsiveness and irrationality, but is a subconscious reaction, is the framework that drives emotional branding theory.
Today's most successful companies are said to have built relationships with consumers by engaging them in a personal dialogue that responds to their needs. Marketers who've broken through the clutter have done so by connecting with consumers and, thereby, have created strong emotional bonds through their brands.Making the Emotional Connection.(2001) Brandweek. General OneFile. Author Barbara Green states "You have to have a love affair with the consumer-flirt with them, provide that titillating buzz. When that flirtatious relationship becomes a deep relationship, then you have a major brand."Green, Barbara.(2003) Product is no longer enough; smart marketers know the way to the wallet is through the heart. National Jeweler: 40+. General OneFile.
The process of Emotional Branding has an underlying concept based on four important factors which acts as a blueprint: Relationship, Sensorial Experience, Imagination and Vision.
The relationship aspect of emotional branding establish a connection based on mutual respect for consumers by giving them an experience that touches them emotionally. It is critical that the companies are able to adapt with the rapid shifting of consumer trends. Many organizations are not aware of the changing trends in the consumer population, such as the growing number of multicultural races in the target market and the impact of feminism in our current generation, which is profoundly affecting consumer brand expectations.
Researchers are yet to expound the depths of sensorial experience because it could potentially lead to deeper explanation as to how and why the use multi-sensory brand experience could trigger an emotional response from the consumer. Sensorial experience also explains how companies were able to apply and manipulate human emotions on the product to win the favour of consumers.