When was the last time you laughed or cried watching an advertisement? The most important memories in your life are often recalled through the emotions and feelings which were triggered in that moment. In this blog, we consider the use of emotion in advertising – and consider a pretty well-known sporting event, to demonstrate.
Happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, anger and disgust are the main pillars of the sentimental pyramid.
If you take some time to think about it, when you see a piece of content or art, the only way that you will remember it is if it triggered a reaction out of you in some sort of way. An article named “How Emotions Influence What We Buy”, written by Peter Noel Murray PhD, makes a very interesting point:
“Advertising research reveals that the consumer’s emotional response to an ad has a far greater influence on their reported intent to buy a product than does the ad’s content — by a factor of 3 to 1 for television commercials and 2 to 1 for print ads.“
With this being said, commercials and ads with sentimental value have a bigger impact on consumers than any other.
Let’s take The Super Bowl, one of the biggest sporting events of the year, as an example. Many brands will already be thinking about the 2020 Super Bowl. It is one of the most important weekends for many companies, brands and advertisers, across a variety of verticals. This year, there were 149,000,000 total viewers of The Super Bowl around the world, with 98,199,00 million of those being in the US.
This major event consists of three important parts; the game, the half-time show and the commercials. That the game is the highlight of the day goes without saying, but not all viewers watch it because they are football lovers. The halftime show draws in some of the world’s best-known artists, and they put on one amazing music and light show. Further to the sport and the entertainment, we have the advertisements – where companies invest a lot of time, money and effort.
The weirder – the funnier – the crazier – THE BETTER.
In their article, “The Power of Super Bowl Advertising”, Forbes Magazine said:
“The commercials bring entertainment and an opportunity to sell to the largest television audience of the year. According to the Associated Press, the average Super Bowl ad cost is $3.5 million; that’s a serious blow to the advertising budget.
The million dollar question remains “why don’t consumers watch commercials throughout the rest of the year?” Probably because they don’t believe it is worthy of their time. Viewers understand that this airtime is “special”.
Google and Microsoft definitely took advantage of this, and had two of the most effective Super Bowl ads of the latest edition. Their heartwarming, compelling and touching advertisements had a huge impact on viewers. Yes, it is important to think about selling your product, but it is more important for a brand to use their reach to relate to human values, especially in the times of hate and anger.
Microsoft:
For decades now, Microsoft has been providing entertainment for millions of users all around the globe. As we can see in their advertisement, not all ‘gamers’ have the same physical conditions to play a video game and it was about time they did. The multinational technology company created special controllers for users with disabilities, that way they could play with no restrictions and be as competitive as others.
If we take a closer look, we realize that if this commercial was focused on just another release of a new controller for Xbox, it wouldn’t have had the same impact. Brands as powerful as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon or Facebook have the opportunity to use the huge power of their brands to make positive changes in the world that consumers can relate to.
Google:
When you go on a trip or move to a new country, the first question that comes to our mind is, how would I communicate with people that don’t speak my language? Google has further developed Google Translate, and it now allows you to speak with anyone at any time.
92.25% of the world’s population are Google users. Imagine their impact. It’s technology like this that pulls users onto their platform on a daily basis.
Be bold. Tell a story. Make a difference.
As they stated in their spot: “Every day, more than 100 billion words are translated with Google Translate. And every day, the ones that are translated most are the ones that bring us together.”
Overall, we can all agree that when agencies and companies create ads where emotions are involved, the results are much stronger and are more likely to build a stronger consumer-brand relationship. It’s better to remember something because it made you laugh, cry or even think – rather than feel indifferent.
What do you think? Are there advertisements you have an emotional connection with? To discuss further, or to find out more about Croud, get in touch.
