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Intelligence Applied
Taking control of your emotions
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Taking control of your emotions
Emotion is fundamental to every decision
that every consumer makes, and if
brands want to build their irresistibility
they must speak the language of
emotion across all touchpoints.
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Taking control of your emotions
Roz Calder
Director of TNS’s
Needscope International
Emotion is what makes us human. But not in the way
that many self-help gurus, romantic fiction writers
and traditional advertising creatives might have you
believe. Emotion isn’t just our joy, sadness, fear,
anger or surprise; it’s not engaged only when we
“feel emotional” or when we encounter something
deliberately designed to make us that way. Instead,
emotion is fundamental to how we operate. It
enables our fast thinking and decision-making,
exerts an unconscious influence over our choices
and is always, always in play when it comes to how
we respond to brands. If brands are to become
irresistible, they need to understand the implications
of this – and act on them.
Marketers are frequently told that emotion matters.
If they’ve read their Daniel Kahnemann or Antonio
Damasio, they’ll have a sense of the complex
nature of emotion and how it intersects with
decision-making. But when it comes to managing
emotion with a discipline that reflects its importance,
far too many brands fall short. This is often because
emotion itself remains stubbornly misunderstood.
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Taking control of your emotions
Emotion is everywhere
In the past we thought of emotion as something
distinct from functionality, and our emotional selves
as diametrically opposed to our functional, rational
ones. Neuroscience proves that this distinction is
flawed. In reality, function and emotion are two sides
of the same coin. Yet often marketers fall back on
outdated perceptions when it comes to when and
how they apply emotion to their activity.
Brands in categories like DIY, toothpaste or personal
finance need to enlist emotion to differentiate
themselves just as much as those in traditionally
emotive categories like fashion and fragrance.
This is because neither consumers nor brands can
switch emotion on and off when dealing with one
another; it’s always a factor in the decisions that
they take.
Likewise, the more functional touchpoints that a
brand has with consumers can engender emotion
just as powerfully as more consciously emotive
communications activity such as advertising. Brand
logo, packaging, website, Facebook pages, service
delivery and retail each have a role to play in an
ongoing emotive conversation, and whether they are
correctly aligned or not will play a big role in how
consumers respond to your brand.
To manage emotion effectively, it’s important to
think beyond getting people to ‘love’ you, or
experience ‘brand joy’. Such popular metrics are
outcomes of effective emotion management – but
they can’t help you to achieve it. Brands become
irresistible by understanding the complex emotive
needs that generate such reactions and aligning all
of their characteristics to speak to them consistently.
To do so, they need a means of communicating
emotively that can work across all aspects of a
consumer’s experience.
Emotion lies at the heart of the consumer-brand relationship.
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Taking control of your emotions
Symbolism: talking the language of emotion
It just so happens that the human brain is hard-wired
to respond to an emotive language, a code that
our fast brain is constantly interpreting even when
we’re unaware of our emotions being in play. That
language is symbolism – and it is the vocabulary
that brands must master if they are to become
emotionally literate.
Symbolism communicates emotion far more
powerfully than words or narrative. If your words say
one thing but your symbols say something else, then
it’s really no contest which your consumer’s brain
will respond to. Good use of symbolism helps build
a consistent brand, but only if you actively manage
the different symbols your brand uses across every
touchpoint. If your financial services ad tells people
that your brand is warm, human and approachable,
but your bank branch is dominated by closed office
doors and screens between tellers and customers,
it’s the symbolism of the latter that will win through.
To use symbolism effectively, brands first need to
understand all of the symbolic channels through
which they are sending messages, deliberately or
not. These include the full range of human senses,
but also colours, fonts, shapes, and the different
environments where brands and consumers come
together. A framework for decoding symbolism also
brings consistency to your management of emotion.
The NeedScope model maps universal human emotions. This
provides a framework to map brands and their symbolism.
To use symbolism effectively, brands first need to understand all of the symbolic
channels through which they are sending messages, deliberately or not.
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Taking control of your emotions
Colour-coding emotion
Colour is a powerful element of symbolic language,
dominating our memory of brands through its use in
elements such as logos, and exerting huge influence
over our emotive responses. There is a reason, for
example, why fast food brands consistently choose
fun, playful, primary colours while banks choose
serious, adult colours.
When a male fragrance brand chooses to present
its product in a red and black branded box, it isn’t
just deciding on tones that go well together. These
are strong, contrasting colours that communicate
assertiveness and go so far as to signal the nature
of the scent that people can expect to find inside.
A white and silver box implies a feeling of order and
refinement hinting at a scent that’s more elegant
and subtle; the natural hues of a green and brown
box generate a mellow feeling of warmth and
imply a scent with earthy, organic tones. Choice
of colour at every touchpoint enables consumers
to start experiencing a brand emotionally and sets
expectations for the functional experience.
Different pack colours evoke different emotions and set up
different product expectations.
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7
Taking control of your emotions
Aligning the senses
Our experience of brands and products enlists a
broad range of senses beyond just our eyes and ears,
and the information that these senses convey has
profound symbolic meaning, whether we intended it
to or not: the music playing when a consumer visits
a website, the texture of the cardboard used to box
a pair of running shoes, the flavour of mint used in
a particular tube of toothpaste. Scent is obviously
central to the purpose of fragrance brands, who
craft it to deliver a very particular emotive message.
However, similarly strong signals can also be
conveyed less deliberately by the scent of anything
from new car interiors to beverages.
Brand touchpoint Elements that deliver emotion
Logo Colour, font, case, shape, imagery
Packaging Material, shape, size, graphics, back of pack info, quality cues
Website Style, music, font, images, tone of voice, navigation, information
Facebook page Images, tone of voice, subject matter
Retail/showroom Size, entrance, signage, product layout, service, music, lighting
Print advertising Photographic style, colours, talent, font, copy, tone of voice
TVC’s Production values, talent, mood, tone of voice, style of humour
Service delivery Channel, personnel, tone, processes
Product Shape, texture, taste, smell, design cues, colour, materials, ingredients
Every brand touchpoint is laden with cues that carry an emotive message, even those that seem functional. They all represent an
opportunity to enhance the emotive positioning of a brand and as such all need to be carefully managed.
Our experience of brands and products enlists a broad range of senses beyond
just our eyes and ears, and the information that these senses convey has
profound symbolic meaning
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Taking control of your emotions
Font of meaning
The typeface that brands use to communicate often
conveys more meaning than the words it is used to
spell out. Ford’s handwritten logo says everything
you need to know about the brand’s heritage and
identity, as does the rugged, faded yet assertively
capitalised typeface used by Jack Daniels on its
poster campaigns. A font with thinner letters and
more space between them might signal refinement;
one in lower case only could suggest informal
accessibility – or a brand that is naturally at home in
the digital world. Fonts follow fashions of course:
hip and cutting edge one year, outdated another.
Brands can follow convention for their category,
or deliberately, boldly break with it – and this adds
another layer to the symbolic meaning they convey.
The NeedScope model
helps decode the emotion
in everything, even
something as simple as
font which can send a
strong emotive message.
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Taking control of your emotions
Getting into shape
Visual information has a huge influence on our
emotional responses – and apparently functional
elements of product design can have just as much
influence as consciously branded ones. Let’s take the
example of a man walking into a bar and choosing
which bottle of spirits he would like to buy a measure
from. Even stripped of branding, the bottles tap
different emotions. One bottle is tall, angular and
relatively slim with a label set at an oblique angle;
the other, shorter, rounded in shape and with a large
oval label centred on the bottle.
The first bottle is essentially masculine: tall, assertive
and confident with its angular label subtly suggesting
the strength of a military uniform. The second is
essentially feminine: warm, softer, welcoming and
suggesting of relaxation and comfort. Each promises
a different drinking experience and our drinker’s
choice will depend on his mood and needs at the
time. Drinks manufacturers know that bottle shape
doesn’t just help them stand out on the shelf;
it sends emotive messages as well. And they need a
good, carefully considered reason for breaking with
this symbolic signposting.
Bottle shape sends strong emotive cues to the consumer
and builds product expectations.
Drinks manufacturers
know that bottle shape
doesn’t just help them
stand out on the shelf;
it sends emotive
messages as well.
And they need a good,
carefully considered
reason for breaking with
this symbolic signposting.
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Taking control of your emotions
Tuning the environment
Whenever a brand invites a consumer into its space,
it unleashes a broad range of symbolic signals
that can either reinforce an emotive positioning
or undermine it. From boutique shops to bank
branches or digital environments such as websites
and Facebook pages, the key to success lies not
necessarily in creating the best possible environment
in abstract terms – but in creating the environment
that aligns best with the brand’s emotive positioning.
This will not always involve the latest style of web
interface or the most pleasingly minimalist design
aesthetic, but it will always involve delivering the
experience and environment that reflects what the
consumer is seeking, consciously or unconsciously,
from the brand.
Why emotional stakes matter
Consistency matters in relationships, and the more
emotional the relationship, the greater the damage
that inconsistency can do. This is true of people’s
relationships with one another, and it’s equally true
of our relationship to brands. When our experience
consistently engages the same emotions, we know
where we stand and we are able to respond. When
those emotional signals become confusing and
contradictory, our confidence is undermined and
we start to question the nature of our involvement.
Anybody can make a one-off emotional appeal;
but it takes planning and commitment to build a
long-term relationship that both parties can rely
on. That’s what brands should seek to do for their
consumers, by defining an emotive promise, and
delivering consistently against it. Because emotion
governs our decision-making processes, mastering
it enables you to become an irresistible choice that
people don’t even have to think about – and that’s
very difficult for your rivals to compete with.
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11
Taking control of your emotions
About Intelligence Applied
Intelligence Applied is the home of the latest thinking from TNS, where we discuss the issues impacting
our clients, explore what makes people tick and spotlight how these insights can create opportunities for
business growth.
Please visit www.tnsglobal.com/intelligence-applied for more information.
About TNS
TNS advises clients on specific growth strategies around new market entry, innovation, brand switching and
customer strategies, based on long established expertise and market leading solutions. With a presence in
over 80 countries, TNS has more conversations with the world’s consumers than anyone else and understands
individual human behaviours and attitudes across every cultural, economic and political region of the world.
TNS is part of Kantar, the data investment management division of WPP and one of the world’s largest insight,
information and consultancy groups.
Please visit www.tnsglobal.com for more information.
Get in touch
If you would like to talk to us about anything you have read in this report, please get in touch via
enquiries@tnsglobal.com or via Twitter @tns_global
About the author
Roz Calder is founding director of
NeedScope International, which is now
part of TNS’ Brand and Communication
practice area. She is responsible for the
development, marketing and global
application of NeedScope with a particular focus on brand
activation. Throughout her career in market research Roz
has worked with major global companies to help them build
and manage powerful brands. She has spent the
past 20 years developing and growing the company she
co-founded in 1994, turning NeedScope into a leading
global research system for brand management.
To find out more contact Roz at roz@needscope.com
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Taking control of your emotions

  • 1. Share this Intelligence Applied Taking control of your emotions
  • 2. Share this Intelligence Applied 2 Taking control of your emotions Emotion is fundamental to every decision that every consumer makes, and if brands want to build their irresistibility they must speak the language of emotion across all touchpoints.
  • 3. Share this Intelligence Applied 3 Taking control of your emotions Roz Calder Director of TNS’s Needscope International Emotion is what makes us human. But not in the way that many self-help gurus, romantic fiction writers and traditional advertising creatives might have you believe. Emotion isn’t just our joy, sadness, fear, anger or surprise; it’s not engaged only when we “feel emotional” or when we encounter something deliberately designed to make us that way. Instead, emotion is fundamental to how we operate. It enables our fast thinking and decision-making, exerts an unconscious influence over our choices and is always, always in play when it comes to how we respond to brands. If brands are to become irresistible, they need to understand the implications of this – and act on them. Marketers are frequently told that emotion matters. If they’ve read their Daniel Kahnemann or Antonio Damasio, they’ll have a sense of the complex nature of emotion and how it intersects with decision-making. But when it comes to managing emotion with a discipline that reflects its importance, far too many brands fall short. This is often because emotion itself remains stubbornly misunderstood.
  • 4. Share this Intelligence Applied 4 Taking control of your emotions Emotion is everywhere In the past we thought of emotion as something distinct from functionality, and our emotional selves as diametrically opposed to our functional, rational ones. Neuroscience proves that this distinction is flawed. In reality, function and emotion are two sides of the same coin. Yet often marketers fall back on outdated perceptions when it comes to when and how they apply emotion to their activity. Brands in categories like DIY, toothpaste or personal finance need to enlist emotion to differentiate themselves just as much as those in traditionally emotive categories like fashion and fragrance. This is because neither consumers nor brands can switch emotion on and off when dealing with one another; it’s always a factor in the decisions that they take. Likewise, the more functional touchpoints that a brand has with consumers can engender emotion just as powerfully as more consciously emotive communications activity such as advertising. Brand logo, packaging, website, Facebook pages, service delivery and retail each have a role to play in an ongoing emotive conversation, and whether they are correctly aligned or not will play a big role in how consumers respond to your brand. To manage emotion effectively, it’s important to think beyond getting people to ‘love’ you, or experience ‘brand joy’. Such popular metrics are outcomes of effective emotion management – but they can’t help you to achieve it. Brands become irresistible by understanding the complex emotive needs that generate such reactions and aligning all of their characteristics to speak to them consistently. To do so, they need a means of communicating emotively that can work across all aspects of a consumer’s experience. Emotion lies at the heart of the consumer-brand relationship.
  • 5. Share this Intelligence Applied 5 Taking control of your emotions Symbolism: talking the language of emotion It just so happens that the human brain is hard-wired to respond to an emotive language, a code that our fast brain is constantly interpreting even when we’re unaware of our emotions being in play. That language is symbolism – and it is the vocabulary that brands must master if they are to become emotionally literate. Symbolism communicates emotion far more powerfully than words or narrative. If your words say one thing but your symbols say something else, then it’s really no contest which your consumer’s brain will respond to. Good use of symbolism helps build a consistent brand, but only if you actively manage the different symbols your brand uses across every touchpoint. If your financial services ad tells people that your brand is warm, human and approachable, but your bank branch is dominated by closed office doors and screens between tellers and customers, it’s the symbolism of the latter that will win through. To use symbolism effectively, brands first need to understand all of the symbolic channels through which they are sending messages, deliberately or not. These include the full range of human senses, but also colours, fonts, shapes, and the different environments where brands and consumers come together. A framework for decoding symbolism also brings consistency to your management of emotion. The NeedScope model maps universal human emotions. This provides a framework to map brands and their symbolism. To use symbolism effectively, brands first need to understand all of the symbolic channels through which they are sending messages, deliberately or not.
  • 6. Share this Intelligence Applied 6 Taking control of your emotions Colour-coding emotion Colour is a powerful element of symbolic language, dominating our memory of brands through its use in elements such as logos, and exerting huge influence over our emotive responses. There is a reason, for example, why fast food brands consistently choose fun, playful, primary colours while banks choose serious, adult colours. When a male fragrance brand chooses to present its product in a red and black branded box, it isn’t just deciding on tones that go well together. These are strong, contrasting colours that communicate assertiveness and go so far as to signal the nature of the scent that people can expect to find inside. A white and silver box implies a feeling of order and refinement hinting at a scent that’s more elegant and subtle; the natural hues of a green and brown box generate a mellow feeling of warmth and imply a scent with earthy, organic tones. Choice of colour at every touchpoint enables consumers to start experiencing a brand emotionally and sets expectations for the functional experience. Different pack colours evoke different emotions and set up different product expectations.
  • 7. Share this Intelligence Applied 7 Taking control of your emotions Aligning the senses Our experience of brands and products enlists a broad range of senses beyond just our eyes and ears, and the information that these senses convey has profound symbolic meaning, whether we intended it to or not: the music playing when a consumer visits a website, the texture of the cardboard used to box a pair of running shoes, the flavour of mint used in a particular tube of toothpaste. Scent is obviously central to the purpose of fragrance brands, who craft it to deliver a very particular emotive message. However, similarly strong signals can also be conveyed less deliberately by the scent of anything from new car interiors to beverages. Brand touchpoint Elements that deliver emotion Logo Colour, font, case, shape, imagery Packaging Material, shape, size, graphics, back of pack info, quality cues Website Style, music, font, images, tone of voice, navigation, information Facebook page Images, tone of voice, subject matter Retail/showroom Size, entrance, signage, product layout, service, music, lighting Print advertising Photographic style, colours, talent, font, copy, tone of voice TVC’s Production values, talent, mood, tone of voice, style of humour Service delivery Channel, personnel, tone, processes Product Shape, texture, taste, smell, design cues, colour, materials, ingredients Every brand touchpoint is laden with cues that carry an emotive message, even those that seem functional. They all represent an opportunity to enhance the emotive positioning of a brand and as such all need to be carefully managed. Our experience of brands and products enlists a broad range of senses beyond just our eyes and ears, and the information that these senses convey has profound symbolic meaning
  • 8. Share this Intelligence Applied 8 Taking control of your emotions Font of meaning The typeface that brands use to communicate often conveys more meaning than the words it is used to spell out. Ford’s handwritten logo says everything you need to know about the brand’s heritage and identity, as does the rugged, faded yet assertively capitalised typeface used by Jack Daniels on its poster campaigns. A font with thinner letters and more space between them might signal refinement; one in lower case only could suggest informal accessibility – or a brand that is naturally at home in the digital world. Fonts follow fashions of course: hip and cutting edge one year, outdated another. Brands can follow convention for their category, or deliberately, boldly break with it – and this adds another layer to the symbolic meaning they convey. The NeedScope model helps decode the emotion in everything, even something as simple as font which can send a strong emotive message.
  • 9. Share this Intelligence Applied 9 Taking control of your emotions Getting into shape Visual information has a huge influence on our emotional responses – and apparently functional elements of product design can have just as much influence as consciously branded ones. Let’s take the example of a man walking into a bar and choosing which bottle of spirits he would like to buy a measure from. Even stripped of branding, the bottles tap different emotions. One bottle is tall, angular and relatively slim with a label set at an oblique angle; the other, shorter, rounded in shape and with a large oval label centred on the bottle. The first bottle is essentially masculine: tall, assertive and confident with its angular label subtly suggesting the strength of a military uniform. The second is essentially feminine: warm, softer, welcoming and suggesting of relaxation and comfort. Each promises a different drinking experience and our drinker’s choice will depend on his mood and needs at the time. Drinks manufacturers know that bottle shape doesn’t just help them stand out on the shelf; it sends emotive messages as well. And they need a good, carefully considered reason for breaking with this symbolic signposting. Bottle shape sends strong emotive cues to the consumer and builds product expectations. Drinks manufacturers know that bottle shape doesn’t just help them stand out on the shelf; it sends emotive messages as well. And they need a good, carefully considered reason for breaking with this symbolic signposting.
  • 10. Share this Intelligence Applied 10 Taking control of your emotions Tuning the environment Whenever a brand invites a consumer into its space, it unleashes a broad range of symbolic signals that can either reinforce an emotive positioning or undermine it. From boutique shops to bank branches or digital environments such as websites and Facebook pages, the key to success lies not necessarily in creating the best possible environment in abstract terms – but in creating the environment that aligns best with the brand’s emotive positioning. This will not always involve the latest style of web interface or the most pleasingly minimalist design aesthetic, but it will always involve delivering the experience and environment that reflects what the consumer is seeking, consciously or unconsciously, from the brand. Why emotional stakes matter Consistency matters in relationships, and the more emotional the relationship, the greater the damage that inconsistency can do. This is true of people’s relationships with one another, and it’s equally true of our relationship to brands. When our experience consistently engages the same emotions, we know where we stand and we are able to respond. When those emotional signals become confusing and contradictory, our confidence is undermined and we start to question the nature of our involvement. Anybody can make a one-off emotional appeal; but it takes planning and commitment to build a long-term relationship that both parties can rely on. That’s what brands should seek to do for their consumers, by defining an emotive promise, and delivering consistently against it. Because emotion governs our decision-making processes, mastering it enables you to become an irresistible choice that people don’t even have to think about – and that’s very difficult for your rivals to compete with.
  • 11. Share this Intelligence Applied 11 Taking control of your emotions About Intelligence Applied Intelligence Applied is the home of the latest thinking from TNS, where we discuss the issues impacting our clients, explore what makes people tick and spotlight how these insights can create opportunities for business growth. Please visit www.tnsglobal.com/intelligence-applied for more information. About TNS TNS advises clients on specific growth strategies around new market entry, innovation, brand switching and customer strategies, based on long established expertise and market leading solutions. With a presence in over 80 countries, TNS has more conversations with the world’s consumers than anyone else and understands individual human behaviours and attitudes across every cultural, economic and political region of the world. TNS is part of Kantar, the data investment management division of WPP and one of the world’s largest insight, information and consultancy groups. Please visit www.tnsglobal.com for more information. Get in touch If you would like to talk to us about anything you have read in this report, please get in touch via enquiries@tnsglobal.com or via Twitter @tns_global About the author Roz Calder is founding director of NeedScope International, which is now part of TNS’ Brand and Communication practice area. She is responsible for the development, marketing and global application of NeedScope with a particular focus on brand activation. Throughout her career in market research Roz has worked with major global companies to help them build and manage powerful brands. She has spent the past 20 years developing and growing the company she co-founded in 1994, turning NeedScope into a leading global research system for brand management. To find out more contact Roz at roz@needscope.com You may be interested in... Revealed: what it takes to be an irresistible brand > The language of emotion >