What’s the Deal with Emotional Appeal?
There’s no doubt that social media has a significant impact on how we view the world. As Ad and PR professionals, we must understand how to use social media as leverage when it comes to generating brand awareness and fostering consumer loyalty. Additionally, social media can be used to create a fun, engaging atmosphere for both current and future followers.
How do we grab the attention of someone mindlessly scrolling through social media? Two words: emotional appeal.
What’s Emotional Appeal?
Simply put, emotional appeal is a form of advertising that uses visual or written imagery to evoke specific feelings such as anger, love, joy, and so on. Rational appeal, on the other hand, encompasses the more traditional side of advertising, where bringing up emotion isn’t the primary motive.
With numerous social channels at our fingertips, it’s easy to surf these networks looking for content that will fill our emotional palette with all sorts of sensations. Similarly, businesses can use this approach to help market their brand or advertise a specific product.
For example, in this social media advertisement from Coca-Cola, people are dancing and smiling while drinking a specific flavor of Coke for #HaveACokeDay. Not only does this ad grab the attention of Coca-Cola’s followers by using upbeat music and attractive models, but it also helps solidify the idea that people drink Coke when they’re having a good time. Coca-Cola isn’t just advertising their product; they’re promoting the enjoyable experiences someone can have while enjoying their product. Emotion is used to stimulate this connection to buy a Coke for #HaveACokeDay.
Why This Strategy?
As explained by Curtis Newbold, emotional appeal is just one of many marketing strategies that professionals in the Ad and PR industry can use to help generate buzz about advertised content, and, most importantly, persuade their audience to do specific tasks such as buying their products.
After all, businesses promote content via social media regularly. Today, Instagram and Facebook ads have become a driving force for all sorts of advertising strategies.
Using Emotional Appeal
According to HubSpot, ads that do the best job in encouraging consumers to buy their product or share their content can be summarized in one word: emotional. As Ad and PR professionals, we learn to appeal to these emotions, but we also create content that highlights the four main groups of human emotion:
Happiness
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Psychology Today recognizes that advertised content evokes positive feelings towards a brand. Moreover, this content can be more influential in captivating consumer loyalty than any other judgment – this content usually helps to promote the best qualities that each brand has to offer. Likewise, emotional appeal can also be a factor in why consumers choose brand-name products over their off-brand counterparts.
Emotion is Powerful, So Use It!
Emotional appeal has been able to show us that content which evokes specific emotional responses has proven vital in attracting a particular target audience to a product. Social media has helped shape advertisements and how they are portrayed to encourage emotional appeal while changing consumer behavior. Emotion is a powerful tool; thus, it can make or break the content that consumers view, and ultimately, how the brand is perceived.
About Nicholas
Nic is a senior studying Advertising & Public Relations. He currently works as a brand cinematographer & photographer for Right Rope, helping to increase brand awareness and sales across multiple social channels. Nic's visual media interests have also led him to Grand Valley's Office of Student Life's Promotions team. He serves as a photographer capturing everything from student lifestyle to professional headshots. Additionally, Nic will be on Grand Valley's Ad Club E-board, where he will serve as their Membership Director. This will be Nic's first year with GrandPR taking on the role of Visual Media Coordinator this fall.