“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did, but people will never
forget how you made them feel.” --Maya Angelou, Former U.S. Poet Laureate
Dealing with emotional benefits remains among the most vexing of challenges that today’s marketers face in positioning their brands. Virtually everyone in marketing knows and believes that today, with so many good choices available to customers and consumers in every product class or category, the brands with the best chance to win are those that make a meaningful, emotional connection with those customers and consumers… primarily by promising a compelling emotional benefit. But knowing or believing this and doing it well are two different things. As we have hypothesized in past weekly DISPATCHES, there are a number of reasons why coming up with a compelling emotional benefit (that links logically, even instantly with the brand) is so challenging, so vexing:
Too little time or too little in-depth research to get beyond the superficial, “usual suspects” that many other brands are already talking about;
Incorrect research:relying on quantitative “attitude studies” without going beneath the customer’s skin to get to the real why of these prevailing attitudes;
Similarly, failing to deep-dive into mile-wide and over-worn usual emotional benefit suspects (like feeling confident or feeling empowered) to break apart the various “dimensions” these actually house;
An extremely limited “emotional vocabulary” among brand team members--along with failing to actively involve “sideline” team members who do have a more robust emotional vocabulary (like agency creative folks).
Overcoming these limitations will absolutely make the job of finding a meaningful, potentially winning (as in differentiating) emotional benefit a lot more likely. But there are a few other things to avoid in aiming for a positioning with an emotional benefit; call them a few “don’ts.”
Don’t fall into the trap of calling a customer/consumer functional benefit an emotional benefit. This is among the most common of positioning errors, especially among healthcare brands. How very often do we hear Rx marketers referring to the patient’s “getting her or his life back” as an emotional benefit. Getting a life back always means, first and foremost, returning to some previous state of normalcy—like once again being able to work, or exercise, or just walk the dog. And this state of normalcy is at once functional. Oh sure, there are definitely emotions balled up within a return to normalcy; but only when we are able to specify how this return to normalcy makes one feel are we really getting to an emotional benefit. Perhaps, with a new knee in place, a patient might rightly feel euphoric, or even rejuvenated. Now we’re getting to an emotional promise that builds logically upon the “what’s in it for me” functional promise.
Don’t try to fool customers or consumers by substituting an emotionally-charged social issue (that has absolutely no connection to the brand and its functional promise) for an emotional benefit.Of course, it’s one thing for a brand that has fallen off of most people’s daily radar screen to seek out revived brand awareness by advocating—in an emotive way—a topical social stance. You’ll recall back in 2014/15 that the long-forgotten Honey Maid Graham Cracker Brand lit up the social media airwaves with its “This Is Wholesome” TV and digital campaign. In that much talked-about and partially-public boycotted follow-on, the brand definitely found itself with a lot of new chatter. But there was clearly no promise of an emotional benefit coming from the Honey Maid brand. There was the comparison of the wholesomeness of interracial or gay families to the wholesomeness of a simple cracker’s ingredients…but definitely no logical connection between either the brand itself or the brand’s functional benefit and socially acceptable family wholesomeness.
And have you seen on-air now a similar, phony emotional benefit
effort—equally disconnected from what the brand promises
functionally--by the Coffee Mate Powdered Creamer Brand?
The latest spot in the campaign features a woman about to return
to work after a long absence undergoing, presumably, chemotherapy.
As she and her husband drink their morning coffee on her first day
heading back to work, once she removes her wig and shows her
hairless skull, we are advised in key copy words to “Stir Up Courage.”
Really now, how is it that a powdered creamer will enable anyone to feel the stirring of courage? Most likely the brand will receive plenty
of YouTube plays and perhaps a good many tweets and texts. But
positioning the brand with a compelling, brand-linked emotional
benefit? No way.
Don’t tell customers or consumers how they should feel; make them feel it.Take Maya Angelou’s advice: people never forget how you made them feel (note she doesn’t say, what you told them to feel). When it comes to “how” we make people feel, we normally rely mostly on our creative resources to come up with an idea that: is genuine, not phony; that intended target customers or consumers will instantly feel is speaking directly to them; that actually might cause a spine tingle or two. It’s hard to find many examples of brands doing these things consistently well. A recent Rx brand, Entresto (for congestive heart failure), we think, does a pretty decent job of communicating an emotional benefit in a way that makes patients feel that benefit—their “Tomorrow” campaign does, in fact, promise a functional benefit of a chance for a longer time before death. But it also promises a feeling of credible, reasonable hope that some good days are really possible.
Finally, don’t overlook the often more compelling impact of a differentiated (or as yet unused by competitors) functional benefit in lieu of a feckless emotional one.Yes, as we mentioned at the beginning, everyone knows that getting to a meaningful emotional benefit is really, really important for brands looking to win. But, all too often, in our rush to get to that emotional benefit, we pass way too quickly over potential, differentiating customer/consumer functional benefits—the “WIIFM” or “What’s In It For Me” ones. And there is no better nor more successfully proven example of going functional in lieu of emotional than what Snickers has done (globally, at that) with the functional benefit of getting back to being yourself, following a bout of “hangry-ness” due to an onset of between-meal hunger. Talk about making a totally logical, meaningful connection between brand and consumer!
Two more, super important Don’t regarding emotional benefits: Don’t settle for the usual. And, for sure, Don’t give up!
Richard Czerniawski & Mike Maloney
Richard D. Czerniawski
430 Abbotsford Road
Kenilworth, IL 60043
847-256-8820
Fax: 847-256-8847 richardcz@bdn-intl.com
Michael W. Maloney
1506 West 13th Street, #17
Austin, TX 78703
512-236-0971
