Our Director of Making Money and Being Smart, Chris Tacy, sent around a link to this summary of a BBDO research study about daily rituals and the emotions they reflect.

You really ought to read it, then come back here. It’s frickin’ awesome.

For one, it’s a reminder that when consumers choose things, they tend to choose first on emotional reasons, then later rationalize those choices with product features and benefits. So as marketers, we have to appeal to the emotion of the benefit or feature — it’s not that the skin cream eliminates free-radicals. That’s the jargon they’ll use to rationalize their decision.

Rather, the emotion of them choosing that skin cream revolves around a subconscious decisions around “Do I want to look as cute or sexy or young or girl-next-door as that model? Am I feeling like my husband needs to notice me? Did I look old when I went clubbing this weekend? Is that why I didn’t get carded at the door?”

There’s about a million emotions in there: insecurity, desperation, and desire to name a few.

So the next time your client wants to build a yes-no chart to compare the product features to the competition, let them know that it’s a great idea to cement the purchase! And that the first step in truly setting themselves apart from the competition might be a similar chart about the emotions elicited by the competition. For example:
OUR BRAND EMOTIONS

• Money-focused
• Hip
• Excitable
• Confident

THEIR BRAND EMOTIONS

• Wise-ass
• Artistic
• Confident

You’ll note that the emotions don’t fit well into a binary, yes-no chart; i.e. if we’re smart, then they’re stupid. Rather, emotions vary ad infinitum (analog) within a product category. So it’s more likely it’s that we’re street-smart and they’re intelligent. Or that we’re sexy and they’re glamorous.

Subtle difference like that play out in the tone of the art: the photos, the video, the voice talent, the typography and even the writing.

In my experience, bigger brands, and especially consumer brands, are really good at this. They get it. Smaller brands and B2B brands sometimes need convincing that their customers are driven entirely by rational thought.

So the key take-away is learning the context of emotion your product will be purchased or used in.

As an aside, the thing that makes me lust over this study is all the crumbs. The Ad Age article hits trends and big markets, but I’m tingly with curiosity about all the little details: how could my client exploit the niche markets?. For example, the study talks about an increasing number of women putting on make-up in the car. What are the other top places? At the bus stop? If I’m a business owner, what would be the pros and cons, the risks and rewards of building up a loyal following in a smaller, niche market and try to expand it?