Experiences don’t provide a purpose for consumers if they can’t create strong memories, or stir up some uncomfortable emotions from deep within us. Brands that have impactful commercials use the technique of neuromarketing to really grab audience attention.
We all have vague memories of commercials that have really moved us. When brands create commercials, they tap into our emotions and feelings, creating long-lasting impressions. To understand the impact, we need to take a look at neuromarketing in emotional memories.
Emotions Create Memories
You wouldn’t remember a commercial that didn’t evoke any feelings. We see many commercials every day, covering clothes, food, furnishings and more. The only ones that grab audience attention and are remembered are those with an impactful message.
The brain prioritises emotional experiences. That’s why we never forget our first heartbreak, or our first dance. Emotional memories are an evolutionary response, known as memory prioritisation effect. This can be triggered with something as simple as language—words such as love and happiness have memories attached to them. That’s why we’re more triggered to seeing or hearing these words than we are to words like laptop or car.
Emotions Create Associations
Brands use neuromarketing techniques when ad testing to manipulate our emotions, making us associate certain words with their ad creatives. For example, we could associate words like happiness with McDonald’s, because they market themselves selling happiness in a box aka “Happy Meals”.
Brands manipulate our association with certain words to unconsciously drive us to associate positive words with them. This is known within a neuromarketing context as misattribution of arousal. For example, if you remember a heartfelt ad that stirred up emotions in you, even if the content wasn’t relevant to the brand itself—that’s emotional design.
However, this method isn’t effective in creating emotional memories that people associate with brands. If you want consumers to create a direct association of emotion with your brand, you should design a captivating, attention-grabbing ad that will stir up emotions, while setting up a memory association right at the beginning. If done correctly, these can create lasting memories on consumers, making them associate positive messages with the brand.
Researchers, agencies and brands choose Smile Reader for facial emotion recognition and understanding audience attention when ad testing in incredible detail, using a self-serve SaaS Platform. This rich data provides valuable insights on how to measure emotion - that enables them to deliver innovative research, increase brand equity, develop winning products and run high performance marketing campaigns.
Researchers, agencies and brands choose Smile Reader to deliver valuable insights that increase brand equity and achieve high performance marketing campaigns.
For more information on our facial emotion recognition services, click here.