Emotional Branding Key To Best Buy Holiday Campaign

 

Best Buy is starting a holiday ad campaign that features the stories of real people recounting emotional moments in their lives. Scott Bedbury, the brand guru who helped Nike and Starbucks rise to fame, once said that "A great brand taps into emotions...Emotions drive most, if not all of our decisions."

With the holiday season approaching, the airwaves will be full of advertisers touting their wares as THE gift that should be found under the holiday tree. Best Buy has opted for a different and more unique approach, by making the stories do the selling for them.

The campaign carries the tagline "You, Happier" and was created by BBDO New York. In one ad called "True Stories", a Best Buy employee recounts his story of working on a military base in Texas. By moving into the realm of people's lives, Best Buy is able to create an emotional component to an otherwise "cold" product. The ad focuses on families being together over the holidays, and on spouses being reunited after long absences.

By taking this approach, the brand is personalized by creating an emotional context that helps people compare the stories to situations in their own lives.

Best Buy's use of emotional branding should prove to be very effective over the holiday season. People remember stories and, if they're given a way to relate to a brand through storytelling, chances are they will connect that brand to something they want out of life. When it comes down to it, we all want the same things in life. Emotional branding is one way to ensure that those needs are translated into a purchase for a product or service.

Can you think of other examples where emotion was used to promote a brand? What brands consistently use this type of approach, and do you think it's an effective way of marketing/advertising?

Comments

[Quentin Evans]

Hey Karen,

Great post and one that is surely just the tip of the iceberg as we head into the major purchasing season under less-than-ideal financial conditions.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that being able to connect with a consumer on a personal level results in higher brand affinity.

Although the majority of companies try to borrow the equity of an emotion for their product (think vehicle ads and their insinuation of increased status or eco-friendliness the consumer will get) - offering a personal look at the employees of a company is using a different kind of emotional connectivity.

West Jet was extremely effective by employing their "everyone is an owner" strategy to help convince consumers that the level of customer service (in a typically poor CS arena) would be exceptional - since everyone is passionate about the success of a business they own.

The key to effectively utilizing this strategy, IMHO, is to somehow keep it feeling genuine.

The brilliance of the "Best Buy" strategy though is that since the staff don't operate on a "commission" basis, you don't get a feeling of that the staff are trying to use their emotional equity as leverage against your purchasing decision.

If this were their other property - Future Shop - where staff are on commission, this style of advertising would be akin to being invited into the home of door-to-door salesman. You can't help but be wary that you're only being invited into the personal side of that individual's life as part of their agenda to sell you something.

And this is where other advertising that uses this technique often falls short.

Although I don't have a current example of this, experience has shown that I won't have to wait long at this time of year to see someone trying to highjack a random (and perhaps counter-intuitive) emotion to try and affiliate with their brand.

As Carnegie warned us a century ago in "How to Win Friends..." - if you are not genuine, it won't work.

I'll keep my eyes open for a current example of a company employing this technique in a counter-intuitive manner and would love if you'd do the same.

Keep up the great writing Karen... it's always a treat to get in my inbox!

Best,
Quentin

[Karen Hegmann]

Thanks for stopping by Quentin and thanks for your great insight into the world of brand storytelling. Good to hear from you!

I thought your comments were right on. In marketing and advertising, the "story" technique (and in some cases, even the word "story") can be overused.

I love your concept of "emotional equity." Carnegie was right...if a message isn't genuine, then someone - at some point - is going to sense it. To have true connectivity, a brand has to really strike at the heart of the message (and story) it's trying to convey. Without a sense that the brand message is tapping into the world of the consumer (in a way they can relate to and be involved in), a brand message becomes an odd combination of salesmanship and showmanship.

Truly effective brand stories follow the techniques of the world's best storytellers. In addition to emotional connectivity, there's a sense that the audience is being drawn into an interactive and immersive experience that taps into the heart of who they are.

As Marshall McLuhan once suggested, it's not technology itself that we should be concerned about, as it is about the effect that technology has on us.

Just as people react and interact with technology in certain ways, so too do people connect with the stories that make the most sense to them - and relate to them at a level that helps them make sense out of their existence and life experiences.

[Kristi]

Hi Karen,

Apple has done a fantastic job with connecting with people on emotional levels. When the iPod came out it didn't have all the product features of its competitors, but Apple managed to convince everyone that they "Needed" theiPod.

The Yellow Pages "Not Happy Jan" ( http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=2akt3P8ltLM ) campaign in Australia was so successful that the phrase is now firmy instilled in the Australian vocabulary. The TVC was not only superbly executed, but tapped into the anger and frustration we all feel when things go wrong. Unfortunately they seemed to treat this as a one off campaign and didn't follow through on the connection they had made.

[Karen Hegmann]

Hi Kristi

Thanks for stopping by - and thanks for your comments.

You're right about Apple. They were able to elevate the iPod to an almost "cult-like" status. I'm a perfect example. I could have bought an MP3 player, but I wanted to be part of the whole iPod culture and community.

Thanks too for the link to the ad. It definitely does tune in to our emotions, and virtually everyone is familiar with that type of story.

Good luck with your strategic work and drop by again!

[Jamie Szymanski]

Great post - I love this campaign and think it is a great example of how to market effectively during a recession.

[Karen Hegmann]

Thanks for your comment Jamie. Emotional branding is definitely a great way to break through the clutter!