“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou
This oft quoted and deeply insightful bit of wisdom from American poet Maya Angelou brings into focus the tremendous emotional impact that we as people can have on one another.
It’s important for marketers to pay heed as well, as more often than not the same holds true for effective marketing. It’s less about what we say or do as brands and businesses and more about how we make people feel that matters. And if we learn to approach our marketing with this fundamental truth in mind, we may just start realizing gains we didn’t predict were possible.
Everything We Produce Contributes to the Clutter
In brainstorms and boardrooms all over the world this very minute, there are people asking the question: How can we cut through the clutter?
The irony is that anything that’s cutting through the clutter is also contributing to it.
What we really mean when talk about cutting through clutter is, “How can we connect with people who are already overwhelmed by information?”
Human psychology has a suggestion for us. When we push through the incessant noise of our words, and look beyond the illusory veil of our actions, only then can we bring our attention to the essence of what really moves us as humans: our feelings.
Many of today’s most successful brands and businesses already recognize the power of this and work hard to occupy the visceral space inside where gut decisions are made, brand affinities are forged, and brand evangelism is born. And it’s what we preach to our clients here at Motion every day when we say, “Market what’s meaningful.”
You feel me?
Humans are complex emotional beings; we’re all programmed to feel. Every waking moment is one of sensation. Much of what we feel is a function of our environment. It sure is hot in here. That humming sound is driving me nuts. What’s that delicious smell?
Other feelings are a product of our lifestyle. Did I get enough sleep last night? I probably shouldn’t have eaten that whole bag of chips. Working out in the morning invigorates me. And then there’s biochemistry and the hormonal fluctuations that influence our moods, contributing to all kinds of random feelings throughout the day. Exuberance. Irritability. Optimism. Malaise. Enthusiasm. Ad nauseum.
Anyone who’s seen the Inside Out movies can immediately relate. We are all amorphous masses of emotions and feelings, wants, needs and desires that can change quickly and without warning. This is all an inextricable part of the human experience. The opportunity for those in marketing is in identifying how our feelings influence our behavior and then optimizing our efforts to appeal to and connect with people on a more emotional level.
Emotions are the Heart of Effective Behavioral Marketing
As marketing professionals, we’re all-in, all day long on optimizing every facet of the customer experience—mining for audience insights, defining persona types, mapping out buyer journeys, calculating data-driven media strategies, developing micro-targeted campaigns, constructing hyper-relevant messaging matrices, and so much more.
But there’s one area where many marketers continue coming up short, and that’s understanding the deep-seated emotional drivers that subconsciously direct our behavior. Beyond the many surface emotions we have, it turns out there are some relatively basic human desires that run much deeper. These are feelings we’re born with that drive us in unseen ways, countlessly, each and every day.
From Darwin to Maslow to Jung, esteemed social scientists have long studied the mystery of what motivates us, and not surprisingly, humans are more alike than we like to believe sometimes. Harvard professors Paul R. Lawrence and Nitin Nohria detailed four core drivers of human behavior in their book “Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices” (2002).
According to their work, the four core drivers of human behavior are:
- A desire for safety (to protect/defend)
- A desire to acquire (to possess)
- A desire to connect (to bond/belong)
- A desire to know (to learn/understand)
These basic desires are omnipresent in our being, guiding us to make decisions without our even being aware. Good marketers understand this. Great marketers find ways to appeal to these basic desires with promises of security, prosperity, connection and wisdom.
More Emotional Marketing is More Meaningful Marketing
Consumers today are savvy. They’re also tired, and not just of advertising. They want us to read their minds, but they don’t want to feel like they’re being “sold to.” Our job is getting past that and, ultimately, engaging with them authentically and in a way that feels like it’s on their terms.
The only way we’re going to do this is by understanding what drives people at their core. It means rethinking and reframing our marketing challenges in a way that lets us solve for the variable of emotion.
Common Marketing Challenges:
How can we grow awareness of our brand?
How can we sell more of our product or service?
How do we get our desired target talking about us?
How do we get more people raising their hands to learn more?
Common Marketing Challenges Reframed:
What aspects of our brand would appeal to someone on a more emotional level?
Which core desire(s) can our product or service trigger in someone?
What basic emotional need is satisfied when someone talks about our brand?
What feeling will compel someone to investigate what we have to offer?
When we view some of the same old marketing challenges through the lens of marketing what’s actually meaningful to people, we begin to uncover opportunities to connect on a deeper level. Ad industry iconoclast and Howard Gossage was onto this a long time ago when he explained effective advertising in these terms:
“People don’t read ads. They read what interests them, and sometimes that’s an ad.” — Howard Gossage
How do we make ads that interest people? By making ads that make people feel something.
Appealing to the Four Core Human Desires
When we take a closer look at the four core human desires, we begin to recognize some of the ways savvier marketers are already manufacturing brand appeal rooted in feelings.
1. A Desire for Safety
It’s our survival instincts that have gotten us this far in the evolutionary chain. Humans will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that our homes, our finances, our families and ourselves are safe and secure. A great example of a brand tapping into this is Allstate’s award-winning “Mayhem” campaign.
The long-running campaign depicts experiences almost anyone can relate to, like dropping and then fishing for our cell phone while driving. It’s emotionally resonant (and funny!), it shows an understanding of human behavior, and it plays on the natural fear of what could happen if you leave yourself vulnerable (by buying cut-rate insurance). It then smartly positions Allstate as the natural solution that “protects you from mayhem.”
2. A Desire to Acquire
Marketers are always selling something. Lucky for us, another basic human desire is the need to acquire—not only objects but also things like status and power. In fact, many times, these things can go hand-in-hand. Think luxury automobiles. Designer labels. Or even Starbucks. More than simply things to own, well-developed brands are good at helping us communicate something about ourselves to the world. Or make us feel different about our place in it. More confident. More capable. More accomplished.
The fear of missing out (FOMO) strategy was born of this basic human driver. How many times have you seen an ad that uses, “Don’t miss out!” in the copy? It may sound overdone to you, but there’s a very good reason for it. No one wants to feel like they could have had something but didn’t get it—even if they didn’t necessarily want it in the first place. Smart marketers know how to tap into this need (and nurture it through the funnel) until someone fears the potential regret of missing out and compulsively opts in.
3. A Desire to Connect
The need for social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic shined a spotlight on this one as the world got a taste of just how lonely things can feel when there’s limited human interaction. Thank goodness for the Internet, right?
The popularity of social media is due in large part to this core human desire. As is the success of dating sites, fitness centers, telephones, restaurants, cosmetics and many other products, services, and industries. Our desire to fit in, belong, and participate in community is a strong one that drives our everyday behavior in many ways.
This driver is often the inspiration for great storytelling, as well — and we all know the power of that in marketing. One company, Globo TV, bridged the gap between the television screen experience and pure human connection with their “The Real Blind Date” ad that you have to see for yourself to feel. It’s storytelling at its finest, positioning the brand as a creator of human connections and using this “story” to tap into the hearts and minds of their customers.
Humans crave connection, so it’s no surprise that we seek and value relationships with businesses and brands that make us feel part of something bigger. If you want a loyal and engaged customer base openly talking about your brand, don’t just promise them authentic connection—deliver it.
4. A Desire to Know
Have you ever missed an important meeting and then found yourself feeling out of the proverbial loop? We’ve all been there. Coworkers are all speaking intelligently about the topic at hand, and you’re desperately playing catch-up. Or, perhaps everyone at the dinner table is laughing about the latest viral trend that’s been all over the internet and you’re half-heartedly chuckling along because you have no idea what they’re talking about.
That disempowered feeling is the outcome of an unsatisfied fourth driver of human behavior: the desire to know. If you’re a brand marketing books, higher education, training, data, etc., then your marketing reflects this inherently. You are selling knowledge, and in turn, the betterment of the self.
But what if you sell cameras, for example? Do you talk about the features and benefits of the product? Do you show off some of the beautiful outcomes of using it? Or, do you make it supremely personal and engaging by marketing to the depths of human curiosity, as this ad for Canon does?
Adopt a creative approach like this one and you’re no longer selling a camera—you’re unlocking a whole world of new information, adventures, experiences, discoveries. Made possible through the lens of this remarkably proficient tool. There’s no mention of buying or owning a camera in this spot. Instead, it’s an invitation to take a personal “journey” that only you can go on because you are a curious person. And those who developed this ad knows this about you because we are all curious people with a core desire to know.
The above examples are just a few, offered in support of what we mean when we say it’s important to “market what’s meaningful.” Because what moves people is ultimately what moves business. And feelings are what move people.
We will undoubtedly forget 99.99% of what thousands of companies are telling us and showing us day after day about a myriad products and services. What we will ultimately remember, however, deeply, somewhere near the very core of our being, is how—or even that—they made us feel.
