what is an emotional marketing campaign? Definition and examples.

More and more, you have to reinvent yourself in marketing strategies, thinking more and more about your audience and how to reach them, and one of the best strategies you can follow for this is emotional marketing, through which you can reach your target audience in a more personal way.

what is emotional marketing?

We can define emotional marketing as the set of strategies that try to impact directly on emotions, which seeks to establish an emotional bond with its users or customers, all based on 360º communication, in conclusion, emotional marketing seeks that the person identifies with the most human values of the brand.

what are emotions?

In order to understand emotional marketing, we must understand emotions, which move society and humanise our users. In 1872, Darwin began to study emotions, he wrote The expression of emotions in man and animals, in which he explained the expressions and gestures that have been influencing the evolution of the species.

In 1972, Paul Ekman was the pioneer in facial expressivity, highlighting six basic emotions.

1. Sadness
2. Joy
3. Disgust
4. Surprise
5. Fear
6. Anger

After this, multiple other studies were formed in which the number of emotions was expanded, but the University of Glasgow established four basic emotions based on facial expressions:

1. Sadness
2. Anger/anger
3. Happiness
4. Surprise/Fear

what is emotional marketing?

Returning to emotional marketing, what it achieves from this series of emotions is a link with users, customers or consumers so that they feel that they are part of the brand, that they feel it as a part of them. This strategy is very effective because human beings are more emotional than rational beings, this is due to the experiences we have lived and the moments we remember. So if we manage to cover these emotional needs of our audience, this will create an emotional bond with us. But still, creating an emotional marketing strategy is not easy work, and this is because consumers are increasingly demanding, the work of brands is complicated, especially because in times of immediacy, any user can get a resource that covers the need they have, so not everything goes in emotional marketing, we must be very demanding in the content.

Emotional marketing is based on four fundamental pillars:

1. Affective brand-consumer bonding
   

   If there is no link between the two, there is no emotional marketing. We said before that consumers live experiences, but they are not the only ones, brands also do it with them and through them, so they get a lot out of the feedback that the consumer indirectly offers them.

   Thanks to the existing bidirectionality, the level of communication between the customer and the brand is very good, we must always remember that customers want to be heard, especially when it comes to giving their opinion about the brand's products and services. The customer is not only satisfied with the product because it covers a need, they are satisfied with the emotions and sensations that this same product produces.

2. Experiences, sensations and emotions
   This is precisely what the public expects from you as a brand, we are exposed to constant over-information, we receive thousands of information and advertisements every day, and our brain does not take it all in, in fact, it usually takes less than 10% of all that information, so it is essential for a brand to make a difference with its competition, otherwise, we will go unnoticed among so much information. If we arouse an emotion in our users, they will feel emotions that will lead them to make decisions. The main objective of an emotional marketing campaign is to humanise the brand itself, if the person is humanised, the brand will be humanised with it, at least in the eyes of the user.
   
   
3. Lovemark
   We are facing the objective of creating brandlovers, to get users to reach this point, we need our brand to be loved, that is to say, to be a lovemark. For this we need our brand to make customers fall in love with it, and how do we achieve this? through emotions.
   
   
4. Content marketing
   Emotional marketing goes hand in hand with content marketing, one without the other is nothing. You cannot reach your potential customers or make them fall in love with you if you are not very clear about how you are going to do it, with a content strategy you will know at all times what to show, who to show it to and the exact moment to do it. Besides, the content we show to our customers must be interesting, useful, and above all, they must see that it is valuable content.

Examples of emotional marketing campaigns

With these examples, you will be clearer about how to carry out your emotional marketing strategy, and you will be more motivated to create your own.

1. Coca-Cola
   This advertisement came out at the end of 2020, at Christmas time, where you can see how a father travels a long way to the North Pole to take his daughter's letter to Father Christmas, he does not manage to get it and returns home, reading the letter on his return and discovering that the gift his daughter wanted was himself. This, without any doubt, stirs everyone's emotions, especially through nostalgia for the innocence of Father Christmas and the affection for the family. This advertising captivated millions of people around the world, and the title of your promotion is: "This Christmas, the best gift is you".
   
   
2. Protex
   These campaigns are not always based on looking for the sensitive side of the consumer to excite them, as we saw earlier, there are many emotions, and one of them is disgust. This is the one used by the brand Protex in a very effective way, reminding us of all the dangers that can exist by not washing your hands, a very good strategy to promote an anti-bacterial gel, which paid off by positioning the brand as a leader in the sector.
   
   
3. Campofrío
   A married couple stars in the Campofrío 2015 Christmas ad, the man wakes up from a coma and his wife tells him everything that has happened in his absence, a very positive message that stirs the audience making them go through a roller coaster of emotions in which we go from laughing to crying in less than three minutes.

An emotional marketing campaign can pay off in a very positive way, but it requires effort, time investment and a good content strategy. And you, do you dare with an emotional marketing campaign?