[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/11\/18\/how-emotional-triggers-drive-sales\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/11\/18\/how-emotional-triggers-drive-sales\/","headline":"Emotional triggers have driven sales for decades, but 2020 will be different","name":"Emotional triggers have driven sales for decades, but 2020 will be different","description":"Brands have used emotional triggers to win loyalty and drive sales for years, but brands today must balance the marketing of emotion with the actioning of emotionally intelligent systems and processes.","datePublished":"2019-11-18","dateModified":"2021-12-28","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/tracey-wallace\/#Person","name":"Tracey Wallace","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/tracey-wallace\/","identifier":367,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/21377d3250d3cee37a219265f855ca86717424033839661349c4b6845d2250cc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/21377d3250d3cee37a219265f855ca86717424033839661349c4b6845d2250cc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/emotional-selling.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/emotional-selling.jpg","height":375,"width":1200},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/11\/18\/how-emotional-triggers-drive-sales\/","about":[{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/commerce\/commerce-general\/","name":"Commerce","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Commerce","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q26643"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/customer-experience\/customer-experience-general\/","name":"Customer Experience","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_experience","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q984142"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/marketing\/marketing-general\/","name":"Marketing","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marketing","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q39809"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/purpose\/","name":"Purpose","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Purpose"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/sustainability-in-business\/","name":"Sustainability in Business","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sustainable_business"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/purpose\/thought-leadership\/","name":"Thought Leadership","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thought_leader"]}],"wordCount":1032,"keywords":["Emotional Commerce","Purpose"],"articleBody":"95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, according to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman\u00a0\u2013\u2013 meaning they’re based on how a consumer feels \u2013\u2013 about their day, about the product, and about your brand.\u00a0There isn\u2019t much new to the emotional side to brand building; we\u2019ve known for decades that how a consumer feels about your brand matters. A lot.\u00a0Just think back to any one of the good episodes of Mad Men. For example, the Heinz beans campaign Don wins for the agency with a pitch that shows children eating Heinz at the dinner table over the decades. It was called \u201cHeinz Beans: Some Things Never Change,\u201d and originally conceived by Don\u2019s wife, Megan Clavet – and it worked because of emotion.\u00a0The ad had nothing to do with logic. Heinz beans don\u2019t necessarily taste better than other beans. They aren\u2019t necessarily the cheapest. In fact, competitors had been swooping in on the legacy brand and taking customers. What’s an old-school brand to do?\u00a0Enter nostalgia. Give people the warm fuzzies. Remind them why these kinds of product even matter at all, i.e. they don\u2019t. The time with family, the full belly, the happiness, the laughter \u2013\u2013 that\u2019s what matters.\u00a0It\u2019s the same hat trick all of the company\u2019s we love most have used:Apple\u2019s Misunderstood Technology Campaign: Showing a family together, with that one person always on their phone. (We\u2019ve all been there). Come to find out, he\u2019s been using his phone to create an amazing video for the whole family. The ad won an Emmy.\u00a0REI\u2019s #OutOutside Campaign: This ad campaign spoke to folks to get outside, spend more time with family, and think less about consumerism. REI\u2019s sales went up for doing the thing no one thought possible \u2013\u2013\u00a0shutting down on the busiest holiday of the year so families could do the same. The ad campaign has won many awards.Google\u2019s Home Alone Again Campaign: This ad harkened back to the Home Alone series of the 90s that most millennials loved, starring the lead actor Macaulay Culkin. Now, they’re Home Alone with Alexa. It was the most watched ad of 2018, racking up 70.7 million views.\u00a0The point of all of these campaigns was to sell more, of course, but they did it through emotional resonance and building a connection between the viewers (potential consumers) and the brand.\u00a0So, if we\u2019ve known this all along, what\u2019s changed in 2019 \u2013\u2013 and where will that take us in 2020?The importance of purpose in the experience economyIn the past, brands may have been able to get away with amazing ads that pulled the strings of nostalgia and made consumers fall in love. Today, that isn\u2019t enough. Millennials, and especially Gen Z, who’ve grown up discerning between various options on the internet, have a keen and critical eye.\u00a0The question these generations will ask is: Yes, you can pull on emotions via advertising, but what else about your business stands up for what you say you believe in?This means that brands must have a higher purpose beyond growth and revenue.\u00a0Do you give back to 1% for the planet?\u00a0Do you use ethical labor laws and pay a fair wage?\u00a0What is your political stance, and when might you put your company\u2019s dollars behind it?\u00a0The answers to these questions matter to Millennials and Gen Z, which means looking forward to 2020 as Gen Z becomes a major percentage of the American wallet over the next decade, this will only continue to matter more.\u00a0Emotional intelligence in business, including with employeesIn 2007, Arianna Huffington, the Founder and former CEO of The Huffington Post, collapsed from burnout and exhaustion. She broke her cheekbone on the way down and had to have four stitches in her right eye.\u201cThat was the event that got me to start asking these questions that we stop asking ourselves after college,\u201d says Huffington. \u201cThings like \u2018How is a good life,\u2019 \u2018What is success,\u2019 \u2018Why by conventional standards do we measure success by money, power and recognition?\u2019 By any measure of success, if you are lying in a pool of blood in your office, you\u2019re probably not successful.\u201dHuffington then started Thrive Global, an online publication focusing on education and storytelling around burnout, the importance of sleep and meditation, and overall improved mental health that highlights true success, as measured by personal happiness.It\u2019s a movement that’s taken deep root in the U.S. and will likely continue to do so. After all, millennials graduated college into the worst recession in modern history. They also carried with them the largest student debt of any generation. Both of which happened as the middle class was shrinking, cost of living rising, and wages staying pretty much the same.\u00a0The old adage that working hard will get you to where you want to go just hasn\u2019t panned out for a lot of millennials, and the added stress of growing up surrounded by social media has put new pressures on Gen Z. These two generations are worn out, anxious, depressed, and more lonely than any others before them \u2013\u2013 and now, they are demanding brands and internal business culture that recognize mental health and emotional intelligence in every campaign, meeting, and boardroom.\u00a0CX makes every moment matter, leading to loyalty and advocacyIn the last year of this decade, customer experience and employee experience are the keys to building a beloved brand \u2013\u2013 and will be long into the next. And CX, both B2C and B2B, is about emotional intelligence and resonance.\u00a0Differing from how brands have previously used emotional triggers to win loyalty, brands today and for the next decade will need to balance the marketing of emotion with the actioning of emotionally intelligent systems and processes. Without these, the campaigns of the future will on deaf ears as consumers savvy up to ads and brands that promise connection without any semblance of it.  Every digital moment matters.Are you making the most of them?1,000 business leaders dish on how to stand out from the crowd with a great CX. Get the details\u00a0HERE.\u00a0"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2019","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"11","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/\/11\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"18","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/\/11\/\/18\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Emotional triggers have driven sales for decades, but 2020 will be different","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2019\/11\/18\/how-emotional-triggers-drive-sales\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]