The power of storytelling and emotions in decision making and brand success
In my previous article, I spoke about my life in quarantine and whether positivity can be a choice in our everyday lives. However, one of the issues that I question myself on these days is how easy it can be to be a part of a community and the new ways that people find in the lockdown to communicate this need, even virtually.
As we notice in many countries, like Greece and Spain, lockdowns have started to ease. This means that in the coming days social interactions will be more present again. In terms of the new situation after the “strict lockdown,” I was concerned as a person and consumer on whether or not I can be a part of a community without fear, including about how shops and common spaces will handle the situation.
Recently, I have watched the online conference “How will happiness be defined in the future?”, organised by News Live UK (https://newscommercial.co.uk/news-live/events/how-will-happiness-be-defined-in-the-future). There, Shazia Ginai, CEO of Neuro-Insight, and Matthew Busby, Just Eat's UK Marketing Director, shared their opinions about how a marketing strategy can change its narratives according to a new situation based mostly on emotions. Without a doubt, many of us are experiencing a very emotional circumstance where our feelings can reach their peak.
And so, Ginai explains that a brand can create a deeper connection with each customer if its messages are formed according to storytelling. In times like this, there is an emotional space, and she says that "the brain is looking for stories and not brands." (A good illustration of this can be the movie Inside Out!)
People, now more than ever, seek human connections and stories to support people. Moreover, in less functional periods the customers will interact with things that are relevant to them. Ginai explains that it doesn't matter how positive or negative news and messages are but mostly how we engage with them. At least this is evident in hard news: news that is most important to us.
When basic human needs are unmet, people are searching for building trust and a sense of community with each brand. Neuro-Insight, UK's neuromarketing agency is trying to track how this changes especially in times that advertising is challenged. For Gιnai, "it is a great time for advertising because people appreciate little things in life, and people make decisions according to their subconscious mind, which leads the 19 % of our brain".
Neuro-Insight noticed that by having to adjust in a new environment, many people developed new behaviours such as exercise activities, but on the other hand alcohol consumption too. The agency focuses on how things will likely shift, leading to a potential reshaping of the brand's message, questioning how the consumer's memory can affect future behavioru.
What Just Eat and Matthew Busby support is not very different. One of the main concern for them is to try to understand their customers and create an emotional connection with them. A restaurant is one of the main spaces that the local community meets so the owners need to act fast. Busby mentioned that people expect authenticity and they need to feel that the support in their community is a necessity. The type of connection during the pandemic transformed and they are trying to create a consistency of context, even in their social media strategy. As he described, by the beginning of the pandemic they provided information to their carriers on how to react to Covid-19 and they had to contact their restaurant partners.
In the first phase, they tried to establish what was going on, articulating and translating the government’s advice. Then in the second phase, they tried to provide tangible support to vulnerable groups (e.g with low-price packages). Busby, like Ginai, claims that the key to every brand is to evolve their approach with relevance to the consumer.
It was also interesting to watch how the viewers that participated in the online pool expressed their reactions, as many were business owners. In the live polling, the results showed that 63% changed their brand message but were active in the market place, while 37% changed their marketing strategy for the foreseeable future!
These strategies might be specific to UK brands at the moment, but many chains may follow the same path globally. Soon, people will seek to make up for the lost time and to once again find the old joys in their lives.
The participants of the conference attempted to answer the question, "Whether brands will change their narratives according to consumer emotions and how happiness can be defined." Even if the marketing narrative is about to change a second question will arise: "Are the consumers going to be willing to "buy" or even "understand" the new messages and with what cost? The circumstances and behaviours can change from one day to another but a realistic approach to the brand-consumer connection can be followed.