Leslie Picot-Zane, who runs a brand consultancy called “The Center For Emotional Marketing,” explores that question in this week’s Brandweek. This is worth a read. Here’s a snippet:
One of the classic agency arguments against product information is that it renders the advertising dull and lifeless and gets in the way of the movie they want to make. But a recent Advertising Research Foundation study of beer ads shows that romancing your product visually—for example, slowly pouring ice-cold beer into a tall glass—can generate as much emotion as babies or puppies.
Of course, the beer-pour cliché is likely to provoke cries of protest from the agency’s creative folk.
And marketing clients contribute to the gridlock by viewing all advertising as black or white. As soon as emotional advertising stops working, they retreat to purely product-based campaigns, instead of recognizing the opportunity for creative that brings the two together.
