Tracksuit, the brand tracking company for challengers, has published a whitepaper titled ‘The Emotion Effect: How to Avoid the Seven Deadly Sins of Emotionless Advertising’. Featuring insights from Google, IPSOS, and The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the study highlights the power of ads that evoke strong, positive emotions.
According to Tracksuit, ads that trigger positive emotional reactions are 27% more likely to be shared and can boost brand pricing power by 40%. In other words, they reduce price sensitivity as customers become more likely to spend more. James Hurman, Co-Founder of Tracksuit, commented on these findings:
For a long time, marketers have grappled with the tension between short-term sales spikes and long-term brand building. Most cave under pressure to show quick returns, leading to an over-reliance on rational, promotional, activation-driven campaigns. Our data shows that they’re missing out, with emotional campaigns three times more effective in driving brand awareness and engagement.
Seven deadly sins
As part of their research, Tracksuit identified the biggest mistakes that prevent marketers from tapping into the ‘emotion effect’. Aptly termed the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, these are:
- Pride: Believing a product is strong enough that rational, product-driven advertising will be sufficient
- Greed: Buying brand awareness
- Lust: Prioritising instant gratification and focusing on capturing existing demand, thereby ignoring future demand
- Envy: Imitating market leaders instead of thinking outside the box to stand out and evoke strong reactions
- Gluttony: Using one ad to achieve multiple goals. Google’s research has found that more than 50% of these ads do not achieve top performance on any objective
- Wrath: Taking an aggressive approach and using promotional techniques
- Sloth: Using rational messaging to achieve short-term sales goals instead of fostering pricing power for long-term growth
To mark the release of their whitepaper, Tracksuit also launched a Tarot deck featuring illustrations of the seven deadly sins.
Learn more about the research here.
Featured image: The Emotion Effect Tarot / Tracksuit