In today's incredibly competitive market and people's limited attention spans, the brand with a better emotional connection to customers will win. Because more than 90% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously, it is important that brands are able to speak to customers on an emotional level. This involves knowing and understanding the customers closely, as well as the values they hold. According to multi-awarded advertising executive Doug McIntyre, this is a double-edged sword, as invoking the wrong emotions in customers can backfire devastatingly.
McIntyre, founder and CEO of insights, strategy, and creative firm Cult Marketing, highlighted the recent case where a major beer brand released a promotion featuring a popular transgender influencer. This led to backlash from its mostly conservative consumer base, which called for a boycott of the brand. Sales of the beer decreased by more than 20%, causing the brand to distance itself from the influencer. However, the distancing did little to help and even angered some members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“That demonstrated a complete misstep and a disregard for understanding the consumer base,” McIntyre says. “They totally dropped the ball on that one, in terms of their target audience, and marketing people got fired. If we were involved in that campaign, we could have tested this with some of their core audience, the heavy beer drinkers, and sense that they would have a strongly negative reaction to the promotion. That would quickly uncover what we call maledicta, which is something a brand wants to stay away from.”
Cult Marketing engages with clients to address their various pain points, some of which include flat sales and lack of emotional engagement with customers. This involves transforming a client's brand messaging from something that is purely cognitive or by-the-numbers into a more emotionally relatable form. Cult Marketing employs a variety of scientific research methods, such as narratology and ethnography, in order to determine how customers currently feel about a brand and how they would receive a new idea.
One client that Cult Marketing worked with was a maker of western boots (also known as cowboy boots) that had been around since the 1960s. For the past three years, sales had been stagnant, and management wanted to shake the brand out of its torpor. Its old marketing strategy focused on how the boots were durable, comfortable, and affordable – typical cognitive language that failed to differentiate it from its competitors. According to McIntyre, Cult Marketing did ethnographic research by talking to owners of western boots and visiting them in their homes. They discovered that pulling the boots on changed the mood of the wearer.
“We found out that there is an emotional transformation that happens when you put on cowboy boots. People felt more confident, and they would stand up tall and jut out their chest. We would ask them how it made them feel, and they said the boots made them feel ‘taller’, ‘sexy’, and ‘badass’. It also made them want to do something adventurous, such go out and party or go to a rock and roll concert. These boots represent an example of what Sigmund Freud termed transitional objects, where interacting with an item such as a powerful Harley Davidson or a classy perfume can change the emotional state of the subject, giving brands the power to essentially sell an attitude or feeling,” McIntyre says.
Following this revelation, Cult Marketing overhauled the brand’s marketing approach, based on an archetype it calls “outlaw fun”. The brand adopted an irreverent, mischievous, and whimsical image, with its material being somewhat risqué, drawing on the feeling of sexiness provided by wearing the boots. This caused sales to grow by 68% in the first year and more than 100% over an 18-month period.
In the previous two examples, the beer company was harmed by evoking a negative emotion from its customer base, while the boots company was helped by a positive feeling. However, McIntyre says that even negative emotions can be harnessed to the benefit of a brand.
Take for example a project Cult Marketing did with a pest management company. In its image association exercise, it found that study participants frequently selected the image of a tornado. Participants were likening a pest infestation to a tornado, which would be something terrible to befall a household. Cult Marketing then used a tornado in the pest control company’s brand video, providing the message that people should respond to a pest infestation immediately, or else they are courting disaster.
To conclude, McIntyre says it’s important for the brand to have a coherent message that evokes a desired emotion from its customers.
“Many times, we find that a brand’s value proposition is all over the place, preventing customers from developing a strong emotional connection. Companies often lack what we call a bible, which establishes the internal brand, as well as core values, and key messages. Within the same organization, people are talking about different things, because they're not reading from the same bible. Having a unified internal brand and message is important to build a strong brand foundation externally. Our job is to help clients realize that, so they can inspire people to be excited about their brand and make them feel like there's something interesting going on that’s worth paying attention to,” McIntyre says.
Media Contact:
Name: Doug McIntyre
Email: [email protected]
