Igniting Brand Growth via Emotional Connections

Over the years, emotions have been linked to the basis for consumers’ choice of brands. Marketers are aware of this and have used emotional connections to draw potential consumers to their particular brand. Consumers may think that they are in control of their emotions, but studies show that this too can be manipulated.  Marketers who understand the power of emotions have unlocked the true essence of accelerated brand growth.

According to http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2016 “Coca-Cola has been winning for years because it has identified its emotional ‘Right Space’. Its approach to brand building has been to have a laser focus on one emotion, happiness, and execute every communication, activation, and touch point with the intention of eliciting happiness among its consumers. Even, as ad campaigns evolve, as they have with Coca-Cola moving from ‘Open Happiness’ to ‘Taste the Feeling’, expression of the brand is still grounded in its core emotion, happiness.” This is why Coca-cola has managed to reach the 3^rd spot in the Top Brands Swaziland 2016 survey that was conducted by Yati Marketing.

Coca-Cola debuted their “taste the feeling” campaign towards the end of 2015 and in a major strategic shift, it adopted a “one brand” approach that united its multiple offerings. It focused on tapping into the consumer’s nostalgia by constructing memory structures for the master brand. Therefore by focusing its marketing efforts in order to capitalize on the equity that it has developed over the years, it has developed mechanisms through advertising that are formulated to try and convince us that we should all be Coke drinkers.

As marketers, the importance of differentiation, especially in mature and commoditized categories, has been embedded in the way we think and the way we market. Coca-Cola exemplifies how to differentiate far beyond the rational and functional attributes of a brand and into emotional territory.