Consumer Emotionalism

The approach to marketing that ignores human emotion in favor of more rational appeals, while largely satisfactory, seems incomplete in that it lacks an equally intensive consideration of the emotions of customers.   Chiefly, the problem is that the analytical types are not well in touch with the emotional elements of psychology, and prefer to ignore what cannot be easily quantified.  Equally to blame are the proponents of emotionalism themselves, who seem not to fully grasp the very thing they are proposing - treating emotion as mystical and unpredictable does their cause more harm than good and discredits that which they desperately want to grant credibility.

This is not to say that the choice is purely between one or the other: it cannot be denied that consumers act on reason, seeking products that can be logically correlated to the objectives they wish to achieve (to gain advantages or rid themselves of problems), and neither can it be denied that emotions have a role to play, particularly where the rational mind fails and actions are motivated by seemingly irrational beliefs and attitudes.

The first-time buyers of a brand do not act on fact: they have a vague understanding about a product and imagine the benefits of its use.  That is to say that they act upon a vague sense of attraction and a feeling of hope - which are entirely emotional matters.    The rational evaluation of the product, matching its features to the benefits they seek, may be an entirely logical process - but if they do not "feel" confident in the facts, they will not proceed.   Consider that there are any number of products that meet the minimum functional benefits that the consumer seeks - and the reason he does not purchase the cheapest are the simplest cannot be explained by fact alone.

The second-time buyer of a brand can be said to be motivated primarily by experience, in that he will return to a product that worked well for him the previous time he purchased it.   This has the appearance of fact, but once again relies on emotion - not only must the product have provided a solution to his needs, but he must "feel" that it did so to his satisfaction.   It is not a matter of cold calculation, as the benefits a person might seek to achieve in purchasing a product are not always quantifiable - while a consumer may be asked to rate satisfaction on a scale of one to ten, what leads them to state that a product is a five or a six?   There may be facts, but they are merely used to justify a fundamentally emotional reaction to their experience.

Ultimately, dismissing the emotional factor from the equations does not purify them, but instead eliminates the most essential factors for the sake of less important criteria on the basis of their quantitative nature, not their relevance or significance to the buyer's decision-making process.  In effect, reduction to the quantifiable factors makes such models inaccurate and unrealistic.

As such, emotions are real, and they have a significant impact on the choices consumers make in the marketplace, and in many cases likely outweigh the rational elements of the problem-solving process: hope, anticipation, excitement, confidence, certainty, disappointment, and the like are all emotional terms.   Trust is not the outcome of an equation, but a feeling.

Moreover, the positioning of emotion as a phenomenon outside of rationality is likely to mischaracterize it.   Emotions are not mystical forces, invisible demons that beset us from outside of the mind, but are elements of the mind itself - and I expect that the relationship between emotion and reason is far less combative and far more collaborative than many, including the proponents of emotionalism, seem to assume.

But that is another matter, best left for another day.