If people are asked how they look at a brand like Apple, there would surely be a variety of responses. The immediate response of some people could be that ‘Apple is expensive’ while some others could say that ‘Apple is aspirational’. The former is mostly a fact or data driven rational opinion, and is derived from one or more features of the product or brand. On the other hand, the second opinion tells us what are the emotions that are evoked, when that person hears of or uses the brand. In simpler words, a rational appeal is what makes a customer ‘think’ before or during a purchase decision, and is usually fact or feature based and somewhat objective in nature. An emotional appeal is usually a more subjective perception that is associated with how the brand makes a customer ‘feel’ before, during, or after the purchase decision.
The adjective ‘aspirational’ in this example is an emotional association with the brand Apple, although at its root could be a rational opinion that Apple devices are more expensive than most others. The question most marketers, branding specialists and market research agencies have been struggling with for years is which of the two is more important. As is true for most such questions, there is no clear cut answer to this but marketers have often focused on one over the other, at times with perilous consequences.
Academicians have carried out very detailed studies to try and measure the comparative impact of both rational and emotional elements, for decades now. This year, a study was published in the International Journal of Management, which tried to assess how effective emotional marketing was in improving the brand loyalty of females towards cosmetics brands. This study looked into some very interesting independent variables, some examples of which are: the impact of certain colors, the availability, or otherwise, of a certain brand since the respondents’ childhoods, and even the vintage of the music used for a particular ad film. The Journal of Marketing Channels took a look at the other side of this debate. They took a demand based approach to gauge the rational response of consumers to different marketing channels. The Journal of Promotional Management also published a paper which looked at the cognitive and information processing aspects of consumers’ response to both rational and emotional advertising. All the three papers cited above were published quite recently, which shows that even after so many decades, this age old conundrum continues to baffle academicians and industry experts alike.
Moving on from the world of academia, let us now look at two instances of how different industries have sought to address this issue of emotional vs. rational in the real marketplace. Let us start with an example from the automobile industry. Traditionally, car enthusiasts and buyers have always discussed powerful engines, sleek bodies, robust tires, efficient brakes and so on. But there is only so much horsepower that an engine can be given, and there is a limit to the number of airbags an average car can hold. Take a look at an interesting article that compared the emotions associated with two competing brands Jeep and Toyota. If you notice, the brand associations have gone beyond the mere listing of product features, and focused more on highlighting the emotions their buyers associate with the respective brands. So it is clear that after decades of product feature driven advertising, there is only so much that a rational appeal can achieve by itself, to influence a car buying decision. Hence the marked shift towards tickling certain emotions in a buyer.
The second example is from a sector that has really undergone a change this year – the FMCG sector in general, and food and beverages in particular. The yearlong pandemic that forced lifestyle changes in people in 2020 has also impacted the buying behavior of consumers around the world. An aerated drink that highlighted emotions like happiness and joy to its buyers might no longer find that to be enough. More and more consumers are now worried about how their health and immunity are affected by what their family eats or drinks. So we can expect that a lot of food brands will put an additional focus on the health aspects and feature based benefits of their products, rather than rely solely on how good it makes the consumers feel. Clearly, this is one sector where most brands will need to recalibrate their rational pitches going beyond the ‘feel good’ factor.
The above examples try to infer how either one of the rational or emotional attributes might become more important than the other, under specific circumstances. As market researchers ourselves at Relevance, we take both rational and emotional perceptions with seriousness and to be of equal importance. While the rational attributes are necessary for a brand to compete and even outperform its competitors, the emotional attributes are what creates its legacy and are often a major contributor to the brand’s salience. And there are times when the two are deeply interlinked, more than what meets the eye. Let me cite an interesting example from a research work we did for our client in South Korea some years back.
Our client was, and still is, one of the most recognized brands of potato chips globally. Let’s call it Brand Z for the sake of confidentiality. Despite its global reputation, and it’s strong performance in South Korea, it was trailing behind a local brand (Brand Y) with massive local patronage. The client was keen to understand what was preventing it from becoming the market leader, and our research revealed that in terms of most rational attributes, Brand Z and Brand Y stood neck and neck against each other. While Y was seen to be slightly tastier, Z was perceived to be more premium and providing more pleasurable moments. However, Brand Z was considered to be more ‘Unhealthy’ compared to its competitors, and this was where its consideration scores dropped significantly. The category of potato chips itself did not have a very healthy perception, for understandable reasons, but within the broad category Brand Z had somehow appropriated the concept of ‘unhealthy’ much higher than the other brands, including Brand Y.
As we dug deeper into what might have caused this ‘unhealthy’ association, clearly an emotional perception, we realized that the root cause lied in the strong correlation of unhealthy with ‘saltiness’, a purely rational attribute. It might be important to note here that for a category like potato chips, saltiness is both an important as well as a desirable attribute. However, Brand Z was usually described as ‘too salty’ while Brand Y was mostly described as ‘well salted’.
That subtle difference in the description of ‘saltiness’ implied that our client’s brand was perceived to be over-salted, thereby making it a negative association, while Brand Y was seen to be perfectly-salted and therefore more desirable. This rational image of being oversalted had crept in over time, and had impacted the brand’s emotional image by evolving into a perception of unhealthiness.
So, where do we stand on Rational vs. Emotional?
This was a major lesson for us, one that has shaped our opinion about what needs to be prioritized – decoding the rational attributes of a brand or understanding the emotional personality of a brand.
While the rational attributes are more fundamental, they are also more competitive to attain and yet relatively easier for others to replicate. The emotional attributes, on the other hand, elevate the status of a brand in terms of equity, and take it beyond just being a need fulfilling product. However, to identify correctly the emotions a brand can evoke, and then devise a pathway to those emotions the brand should evoke, is a more complicated process that needs a proper approach and deep analysis. This is probably why more brands and researchers tend to stick to the rational positioning of brands, instead of trying to crack the more difficult ‘emotional code’.
The choice between ‘think’ and ‘feel’ can never be adequately resolved to the satisfaction of all stakeholders involved. That, perhaps, is what makes branding and marketing such a challenging yet exciting area. At Relevance, we believe a brand’s overall image is driven both by its rational attributes as well as by its emotional perceptions, and when asked to choose between ‘think’ and ‘feel’, the only thing we recommend is to choose ‘both’!
About the Author:
Bernat is one of the founders of Relevance and is based out of our HQ in Barcelona, Spain.
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