We Need Emotional Content

Sure, but what the hell does that mean?

You hear something like this all the time. Emotional ads. Emotional stories. Get an emotional response.

And it's true: the good folks at System1, for example, have shown over and over and over that emotions play a key role in ad effectiveness and brand building. (BTW, this is 100% true in B2B too.)

But there's a catch.

As my friend and fantabulous creative director D'Arcy O'Neill likes to say, "So which emotion do you want them to feel?"

It's a brilliant and vital next step. Because disgust and anger and contempt often don't work so well in ads.

Do you want people to feel happy or calm? To feel awe or admiration? Or are you going full Don Draper with nostalgia?

The set of universal emotions that System1 uses is a good example of getting specific without getting stupidly over-specific. (For this exercise I use the new list of 27 emotions from Cowen & Keltner.)

So the next time someone on your team says "we want this content to be emotional," do your best D'Arcy impression and say, "Oh? Okay then...."