How to avoid the seven deadly sins of emotionless advertising
Written by
As marketers, we’re all aware of the tension that exists between short-term sales spikes and long-term brand building. It’s been highlighted in the landmark study “The Long and Short of It”, conducted by the godfathers of marketing Les Binet and Peter Field – and you’re likely familiar with this push-and-pull yourself in annual marketing budget planning.
Emotional advertising works, we know this. But the pressure to show quick returns often leads us to lean on rational, product-focused campaigns.
In The Emotion Effect, Tracksuit explores the Seven Deadly Sins of emotionless advertising and presents compelling evidence, using our data alongside additional insights from Google, that emotional storytelling outperforms rational approaches across all platforms – from traditional media to digital channels like YouTube.
This report serves as a guide to the pitfalls that marketers should avoid in order to strike a better balance between short-term gains and long-term brand health, ultimately driving greater business value.
Access the Emotion Effect report now.
“The focus has been on short-term and product activation for so long that it's hard to understand, ‘How do we put the focus back on emotion?'"
– Ariane Pol, Global Head of Research at Google
What are the Seven Deadly Sins of emotionless advertising? 🐍
The Emotion Effect breaks down these seven deadly sins further, exploring the tempting traps that marketers often fall into, with a little help from James Hurman, Co-Founder at Tracksuit and Ariane Pol, Global Head of Research at Google.
The report also showcases the power of emotional advertising with useful data and helpful case studies featuring global brands like Airbnb, Heineken and Volvo – giving marketers concrete insights to back up their advertising activity.
Here's a teaser.
- Greed is an insatiable desire for more, buying awareness through huge media spend rather than focusing on a more telling metric: fame.
- Wrath’s impulsive nature makes marketers use aggressive, promotional techniques without first building positive feelings towards a brand.
- Sloth makes us prioritize volume over profitability, unable to see that emotional advertising helps to foster a brand’s pricing power.
- Lust speaks to a lack of self control, in which we go after existing demand instead of trying to create Future Demand.
- Pride is centered on excessive vanity: the dark path of thinking you only need to talk about your product’s features for it to be successful.
- Gluttony manifests when marketers try to use only a single ad to achieve multiple objectives across the entire marketing funnel.
- Envy represents the impulse to blatantly copy competitors or following what successful brands in your category are doing.
By avoiding an over-indexing toward rational, short-sighted strategies, brands can forge stronger, more meaningful connections with their audience and not only capture greater attention in the present but also build a stronger foundation for long-term brand growth in the future.
Research shows that emotional campaigns are nearly twice as likely to drive profit growth for businesses.
"Long-term brand building is about striking a connection with the audience and providing more than just the functional benefits. When you do that, people are more keen to buy in at a premium, they're more keen to buy into your brand values and choose you as a superior product."
–Ariane Pol, Global Head of Research at Google
As marketers, our job is twofold: converting current demand and planting positive memories for future consumers.
While people quickly forget facts, they remember feelings for a long time.
