Human emotion- the key to a marketer’s success

First let me ask you, whether a decision is made based on rational and practical bases? If you said Yes, then the answer is wrong. When a human takes a decision he mostly takes help from the part of the brain which is responsible for emotions. For us, emotions are what drives our decision with the help of rationality and practicality of the situation itself.

Whereas marketing is mostly about how you impact a person’s psychology. And good marketing is when you impact the person’s psychology the way you want it to be.

How our brain functions while buying something.

Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, Antonio Damasio researched parts of the brain which are affected while buying and which remains unaffected.

He repeated the test for more accurate results and found through fMRI that when the audience was looking at a product or service, the part of the brain which is responsible for feelings, emotions, and memory(Limbic System) reacted in the scan. Whereas part of the brain which is responsible for the processing of data, its analysis, etc, mostly remained unaffected.

Human emotion- the Key to a Marketer’s Success

Previously six emotions were recognized by people who were- angry, afraid, disgusted, happy, sad and surprised.

But in 2014, the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology published research stating that there are only 4 emotions that humans possess which depends on social surrounding human is dealing with. These emotions are happy, sad, angry/disgusted and afraid/surprised.

Happy

Association of happy feelings to your brand is the most effective way to put your brand into the minds of people. People always tend to recall happy feelings and with that, they associate your brand with happiness. According to a New York Times article, people tend to share articles with a positive vibe more than articles having a negative vibe.

But practically, it’s not that surprising. Humans always tend to associate memories with the ones who are happy. Even if your brand fades away in the mind of the person, if you were able to associate a good memory with it they will instantly recall your brand from the happy memory you associated with your brand.

Sad

Sad emotions have to be handled very delicately. Marketing should not result in the audience shedding their tears. It should rather be able to touch their core emotions effectively and bring a good feeling out of the advertisement in the end. TVS Thai ad is one of the best examples of using sad emotions for marketing.

Angry/Disgusted

Anger is a negative feeling. Utilizing this emotion is hard. But when done right it provokes the audience in taking some action that you want them to do in the spur of the moment. It is found that when people are brought with angry advertising in which there is an element of surprise followed with inspiration, people tend to act inflow of the anger, giving the marketer the attention he wants to have.

Fear

Fear is the most instinct of the human species. When a person is subjected to the element of fear, a strong reaction in his/her brain takes place making him/her follow an action to cope up with the situation. Advertisements from tire companies are the best example of fear ads. Those ads presented a life threatened by the low quality of the tire. The audience watching this immediately acts and checks the tire condition at the regular period.

For a marketer, it is important to tap the psychology of the human mind. It is to gain audience attention and then retention of the brand in the mind of the audience.

Emotions are a perfect ride in the playground for a marketer. As they will allow the brand to act on human psychology and then impact human emotions to achieve brand goals.

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