It’s not enough to find a message that resonates with your customer, or tap into universal feelings and experiences to sell something. If your product isn’t good enough or competitively priced, the message will never hit home. That’s what Graeme Newell, President of 602 Communications and a customer loyalty expert who shows organisations how to build deeper, more passionate relationships with their customers, tells Anuka Roy, on the sidelines of recent PromaxBDA conference in Mumbai.
So what exactly is emotional marketing?
Emotional Marketing is moving beyond mere product features, and attributing those products with a deeper emotional resonance that really touches something that is in all people. Those universal emotions which all of us feel, for ourselves and each other, those are the most powerful drivers. The instinctual things that were built thousands of years ago — when we cared for each other, when we were bold and adventurous — those are the things that help a species survive. By being able to tap into those natural things that we all feel, we can give very standard products deep emotional meaning. It is also almost like turning a product in to a person.
You are an expert on customer loyalty and your advice to organisations is deeper emotional connect with customers. But isn’t that what marketing is all about?
It is, and it is about taking it to the next level. My company researches very specific customer groups and on the network side, we get the best loyal and new customers they hope to grab. We do not ask them how they like the network, but we ask them about how they feel about themselves, the things they worry about and hope for, and then we build the programming — the shows, the marketing, promotions and advertising around those deeply resonant things that those audiences are predisposed to feeling about themselves. If we can make that average content into something that has deep emotional resonance, people will come to our channel first. For me, when HBO comes out with a new series, because I have a deep attachment to HBO, I am totally ready to give that show a try. It is because of the experience and emotional feeling.
How important are emotions in modern marketing, when people have no time?
It’s a balance because you have to make sure you have good product features. In any category — whether cars, soaps or shows — if you have bad programming, no matter how emotional you are, you will not watch bad shows. I have a good product and I have to make sure that is there. And if you do not have that, then you have to work on it. It’s an idea that we call warmth and competence. You’ve got to have competence when you come in. In the television category, there are a tremendous number of competent networks. There are a million choices for dramas, comedies, sports and such. The only way I am going to give another network a try is if they, first, have proven that they have got basic competence. But aside from that, once you achieve that level, it goes to the next level, which is about affinity to that product, the idea that ‘I truly believe this network gets me’.
Would you say that with the advent of social media and a digitally-driven society, the work of emotional marketers has become easier?
It has. What that has enabled us to do is have a direct connection with our customers like never before, prove to them that we are listening to them, and get two-way feedback. But I think a lot of marketers misunderstand social media and are still treating it as advertising platform. It is an amazing opportunity to show what we stand for. It is a delicate mix and we have to make sure that we use social media responsibly, but it has never been easier or more powerful than it is now. Getting people, particularly loyalists, to hang with us, provides amazing opportunities for us to hyper-serve those loyalists.
You mentioned the fact that people name-drop brands to impress others. How much of that is prevalent in a place like India where people are sensitive to prices?
It does not matter how emotional you are if you do not have a good price point or a good product. Apple is trying hard to get into India right now, and it’s having a hard time because of its price point. What they are trying to do is to get that price point down by selling used phones and allowing people to have much better prices. It is always going to be a combination of that. Again, it is that warmth and competence idea. If you’ve got a high-priced product, I do not care how nice you are, I am not buying it. It really comes down to whether people have more time or money. In India, it is much more about time. People are willing to watch a few more commercials if they are able to save a few rupees.
How far does emotional marketing work in the Indian context?
You are an incredibly passionate community here. I think more than any other country in the world, the opportunity here is endless. But the concept of emotional marketing has really not been explored here. That is the next step. So much of what we have done so far has been proving basic competence. We have got good shows, line-ups, new dramas. The quality of programming is progressing rapidly here. There is an amazing, new number of networks, shows, and just introducing people to this is a pretty big job. The plot — that has to come first. Emotional marketing tends to work best on more mature products, and you have got a lot of young and a very upstart products that have a lot of explaining to do about just what they are. The first step would be to build a base around those product features. That is a solid plan where you clearly understand what the emotional derivers are for your audiences. Some networks still do not do that. My company does that as a first step. Typically, networks come in, get a programming and head out and then they figure out the emotional part of it, quite late. So, most of the time, we end up guessing what that emotion is. We do not have quality research or data that backs it up. This is what I call the ‘golden gut’ marketing. The idea that ‘I know my audience better than anybody and I know what they want’, as opposed to talking to them in a very real way. It is really about listening to your audience.
This interview first appeared in dna of brands on May 16, 2016