Robert Heath’s presentation showed clear evidence that emotive campaigns, those that rely on emotional appeal rather than information and persuasion, are more successful at building brands than those with a rational product message, even in highly rational product categories.

Robert showcased his research which measured the movement of people’s eyes while watching advertising. The faster a person’s eyes move, shows the level of cognitive processing that is happening, and therefore, the more attention that is taking place. The results of the study showed that the higher the emotive content in advertising, the lower the attention people paid! Why is this? Likeable emotive content often causes reassurance, which reduces threat, lowers attention, and inhibits learning. When an interesting ad comes on, people just let it flow, they enjoy it. Emotional content, not rational messages, are responsible for building brand relationships. Relationships develop not on the rational communication level but on the emotional metacommunication level.

Robert explained that a person does not need attention to process emotion. Emotional influence works better at low attention!! Our emotions are more easily influenced when we are not aware that the influence is occurring, which is why advertising can sometimes work better if it isn’t paid too much attention.

Attention is increasingly being seen as essential for ads to work. In reality, advertising influences our emotions regardless of how much attention we pay. And emotions control our decisions. Using irritating devices to arouse attention impedes learning and damages brand favourability. The best way to use audio to build brands is to make advertising with appealing emotive content, which people like and enjoy and worry less about how much they can recall.

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You can see a recording of Robert's presentation or download his presentation deck by clicking the links below.

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