By Jon Mowat
It has long been argued that consumers purchase goods based on emotions and then rationalise their choice using logic. However, modern technology has had a major impact on the way products are advertised, and video campaigns have had to adjust to suit omniscreening (the use of multiple viewing devices at once) and the way consumers can now view video content whenever and wherever they are.
With technology now strongly influencing the way consumers make purchasing decisions, video marketers have had to re-examine how they balance the all important emotional appeal with a logical approach, without overselling. There’s a fine line between being cheesy and appealing to a consumer, and with so many different types of media containing advertising, the competition for a potential customer’s precious attention span is now at an all-time high.
Emotion and Fact
A consumer’s decision is usually based on emotion and then justified by facts, and in video marketing these two elements need to be balanced perfectly. The challenge for many marketers is to be able to combine the two and deliver an individual production and a full-length campaign that ties together each aspect. With social media and video-sharing sites such as Vine playing such a large role in advertising, it’s important that marketers are able to get their message across quickly and to appeal to a consumer’s emotional side, but with a logical aspect included.
Regardless of how short a marketing video is, emotional thinking continues to dominate consumers’ thought processes, and emotion-based advertising speaks louder than logic. Music, stagecraft, imagery and tonality all work together to make a viewer identify with a product or find symbolism in what they see. Once the emotional side has been hooked, the logical side will kick in and our critical mind will search for evidence that backs up our feelings and
beliefs and justifies our alignment with a brand.
Short video clips can play on consumers’ emotions but they must be reinforced with logic and facts about the benefits of a product or proof that it works. By balancing the two, a successful video marketing campaign should be achieved, but it is vital that the emotional aspect is delivered first and then followed up by the logical one.
Creating an Emotional Impact in Six Seconds
The use of social media in video marketing has become especially prevalent when merging logic and emotion in video marketing, and with YouTube, Vine, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook all allowing for varying promotional angles and marketing styles, advertising strategies have changed dramatically. With platforms like Vine limiting content producers to just a few fleeting seconds of video, the opportunity to create an emotional impact on the consumer is essentially reduced down to a single moment. These resources have opened up a whole new aspect of video marketing, allowing for brand marketers to think outside the box and engage target audiences with culturally relevant and on topic content, that is very of the moment.
Weaving Together a Non-Linear Brand Narrative
By cementing an idea or creating an emotional response in just a few seconds, marketers can then use YouTube to build on the logical impact and create longer videos that elaborate a product’s benefits and advantages; in other words these platforms fill in the logical gaps that are missing on other platforms like Vine and Instagram. Once consumers’ emotional attention has been captured, the logical side has to be backed up, and this can be done by creating longer videos that justify a decision.
Where once it was assumed that both the logical and emotional aspects of a video marketing campaign had to sit alongside each other in a self-contained video, in today’s non-linear brand narratives there’s no reason these aspects can become detached and then pieced back together into a sort of meta-narrative by an audience that has become adept at flitting back and forth platforms and even screens on a daily basis. Logic and emotion still complement each other but now they do it across platforms.
In this fast paced world of shrinking attention spans, it’s the emotional grab that has become every marketer’s weapon of choice. But we are rational creatures, so you can always rest assured that the logical bit is just around the corner… or a few clicks away.
About the author
Jon Mowat is a former BBC Documentary Filmmaker and Managing Director or Hurricane Media, a video marketing and production company based in Bristol, England.
