Emotional Marketing

Emotional marketing uses highly emotional content to stimulate a consumer to buy a product or service. Emotional marketing techniques generally employ one of two strategies. One is to threaten consumers with negative outcomes unless they use a product or service. This creates fear, and the consumer buys the product or service to avoid negative feelings.

An example of this kind of emotional marketing strategy would be a television commercial telling homeowners that, unless they sign up for regular termite pest control services, their homes may soon crumble, turn to powder and fall to the ground. This is a fairly easy sell, since homeowners have no way of knowing whether a termite infestation exists. But the fear of getting one can become so strong that consumers purchase termite control services just to be free of having to worry about it.

Life insurance companies have used emotional marketing for years by suggesting to consumers that unless they have large life insurance policies, their families will be left with nothing but debt when they die. The consumer feels guilty, frightened, and buys more life insurance.

The second strategy uses a consumer's preexisting belief that certain products and services are generally synonymous with happiness, fulfillment and good times. Advertisers then attempt to convince consumers that a particular product brand provides more satisfaction and excitement than any of the others.

This strategy is a very effective way to market brand-name products and services to consumers who already associate the product with a positive outcome. Beer commercials are a perfect example. Many people are already sold on beer and connect it with parties and good times.

But by convincing consumers that their brand of beer creates more satisfaction than any of the others, breweries are able to build and maintain a loyal customer base using only the consumer's belief that one beer makes them feel better than the others.