FOR BRANDS STRUGGLING TO PULL, PERHAPS LOVE HAS THE ANSWER?

Isn’t the whole point of branding and communications to make customers want you? To choose you above all others? And to keep on loving you until the end of time? So let’s think about brand love in the same way we do romantic love.

Romantic love is based on both logical and emotional decisions. Head and heart if you will. Cast your mind back to the early stages of a courtship. Did you weigh up whether the subject of your lust was truly the right partner for you? Did your emotions arm wrestle with with your rational mind before you concluded they were indeed ‘the one’?

We humans believe we make decisions rationally. We don’t subscribe to the fact that much of our decision making is led by our emotions. However, some scientists assert that emotion drives 80% of the choices we make.

This belief has been demonstrated by a body of work undertaken by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, where he showed how emotions play a key role in decision-making. In one study, Damasio investigated people with damage in the area of the brain where emotions are generated. His findings showed that while they seemed ‘normal’ overall, they were unable to feel emotions. Ultimately he discovered that they all had something in common: they struggled to make decisions.

They could describe what they should do in a logical way yet they found it incredibly challenging to make even simple decisions, such as what to eat. A lot of the decisions we face have pros and cons on both sides and these often weigh one another out. With no winning rationale, and no emotional barometer to tip the scales in either direction, Damasio’s subjects were simply unable to decide. 

While Damasio argued that “We’re not thinking machines that feel, we’re feeling machines that think”, logic still has a role to play in the decisions we make, and the brands we choose to have in our lives. Still, evidence suggests that emotions dominate and functional reasons are used more as a secondary filter to validate our intuitive choices.

So, what can brands do to appeal more to our emotions and make us fall head over heels with them?  

The highway to our emotions is through the senses. As humans we perceive, understand and recollect the world around us using all of our senses. We can ascertain whether we’re in tiled bathroom or a wood-panelled chamber purely by the sound of a finger snap. We can be transported back to the joyful haze of a childhood summer by the smell of sun cream. Our heart bleeds again and again when we hear that break-up track on the radio.

Making innate sensory connections with consumers can take your brand to new heights. Invest in developing a true and coherent sensory identity for your brand or product in the same way you invest in creating and managing your distinctive visual identity, and you’ll go a long way towards creating stronger, longer-lasting emotional bonds. 

Return to thinking of the one we love; as well as companionship, support, shared values and common goals, it’s the reassuring sound of the voice, the smell of the skin and the feel of an enveloping hug at the end of the day that makes sense of it all.

Head + Heart. The recipe for true brand love. 

Lindsey Jones, Sensory Design Practitioner, Condiment Junkie Condiment Junkie is a multi-sensory agency working with all 5 senses, just like you do. Our work in brand identity, experience design and product development helps to create brand impressions that are as memorable as the most vivid human experience. Drop us a note if you're keen to find out more..... info@condimentjunkie.co.uk