Steffen Armstrong
If you want people to do something, first make them feel something
I shot a gun, then went to a cat café.
One made me want the other. Hang in there (like that kitten in the old office poster). There’s an advertising point in here.
Well, if you know me, you’ll know I like a “weird” holiday. This time I went to Moldova. What I like about travelling is the idea of leaving my comfort zone. And so, in the spirit of travel, I tried something that makes me feel very uncomfortable indeed.
I went to a shooting range.
Shellshock!
I found the sounds deafening; the atmosphere intimidating and my spirits crushingly low.
Think of the people on the other side of the border who do this as a matter of survival. When I left the range, I had the overwhelming urge to find the exact opposite experience to bring me back to normality.
I searched for the nearest cat café. Now, that’s not my kind of thing either.
These poor kitties imprisoned in a coffee shop ‘clink’ for our human enjoyment.
An hour earlier, you couldn’t have paid me to visit a cat café. Now I was actively searching for one.
The café hadn’t changed. How I felt had.
Honestly, it felt amazing. I was totally at peace; the atmosphere was euphoric, and my good spirits returned.
And that’s where advertising comes in.
Something I’d normally walk straight past had become something I actively wanted. All because of how I felt.
I didn’t suddenly become a cat person. I wanted to feel better. And that changed what I was willing to buy.
See, the job of advertising isn’t to politely pass you by. It’s to jolt you out of your slumber. To fill you with emotion, desire, awaken your senses and give you a new perspective.
Because giving people a reason to buy isn’t the same as making them want to. They need to feel something to act.
According to We Are Testers, purely emotional ad campaigns perform twice as well as purely rational ads. That’s a hefty uplift when you consider that approximately 95% of our purchase decision-making takes place in the subconscious mind, where emotion rules the world.
Pride, excitement, and joy can do that. Think Channel 4’s Meet The Superhumans or Google’s Search: Reunion. But fear, anger and upset pack a hell of a punch, too. Like Hey Girls UK’s Seeing Red or Fragile Childhood’s Monsters.
Which brings me back to coffee and cats.
I wasn’t looking for a cat café. I was looking for calm. Suddenly, somewhere I’d normally walk straight past had exactly what I wanted.
That’s the power of emotion in advertising. It changes what matters to us and what we do next.
If you want people to do something, first make them feel something.
Or, as I discovered in Moldova, without the bang bang, you can’t enjoy the meow meow.
Next time, I think I’ll go to Spain.
