Stuart Rising, Head of Graphic Arts at Canon UK & Ireland discusses how understanding human emotions can cut through the digital noise
As a haptic medium, print has a unique power to move people and stimulate emotional responses – whether that be the joy of engaging with a printed book, the motivation to respond to a promotional marketing mailer, enhancing the ambience of a room, or the anticipation of unboxing a new purchase.
As an industry, we often discuss how print can cut through the digital noise and consumers’ advertising fatigue. But why is print such a powerful tool in today’s marketing and sales environment? To truly harness the power of print and become expert brand advisers, print service providers (PSPs) need to understand the science behind print’s power to move.
With changing shopping habits and an increasing shift to e-commerce, brands are having to work harder than ever to create more brand touchpoints, both online and instore, and even beyond the moment of purchase. There is also huge pressure on marketers to focus on business outcomes and demonstrable ROI, while competing for consumers’ attention with a vast market of competitors.
This is where printed applications come in, enabling brands to cut through and connect with audiences in a meaningful way, taking them along the journey from ‘aware’ to ‘advocate’. Although it is not enough to simply adopt a “spray and pray” or generic approach to the use of print.
A vital ingredient that is all too often overlooked is how brands make their customers feel in those printed communications. As we’re increasingly focused on data and campaign metrics, we’re in danger of losing sight of how important emotion, connection and experience are in stimulating purchase and nurturing brand/consumer relationships. What humans experience links directly to what we think and how we feel. For most people, emotional reactions happen mainly on an unconscious level, rooted in the evolutionary imperative to survive.
Psychologist, Robert Plutchik proposed a ‘wheel of emotion’ to convey a complex spectrum of human feelings. Previously commonly accepted research suggests four core emotions – Happiness, Sadness, Fear/Disgust and Anger/Surprise, while Plutchik’s view was that our emotional reactions are actually a lot more nuanced.
For the most part, consumers’ emotional responses to brands are relatively ambivalent – the connection is weak and the relationship transactional. To change this, brand marketers, whether they’re thinking about how to engage the consumer at home, out of home or at the point of purchase, need to consider how to take customers on a journey that intensifies positive emotions – for example, moving from acceptance to trust and then admiration. At the same time, we should also be mindful of opportunities to minimise negative responses, such as boredom, annoyance and anger.
We have access to so much data and we know more about our customers than ever before. We should therefore harness that data to create really impactful, intimate, direct lines of communication with the consumer at every brand touchpoint to make customers feel appreciated and understood.
By devoting more time and energy to humanising target audiences and focusing on their beliefs, behaviours, drivers and motivations, PSPs can help businesses create stronger propositions and turn buyers into long-term brand converts. Key to achieving this is to deliver products, content and experiences that are more considerate of consumers as individuals and offer something of meaning or value.
Today, sophisticated audience insights can be used to drive highly personalised promotional marketing communications that are relevant and appropriate to those customer needs and are delivered at the right time. This is where printed direct mail, for example, as part of a well-considered campaign and driven by genuine customer insight, can be extremely effective.
When brands transfer that focus on customer engagement to physical spaces – retail or hospitality environments, for example – they can use the same understanding of the customer to curate more customised and even immersive experiences that remove frictions and frustrations and put emphasis on comfort, convenience and connection. And by considering the physical space as an intrinsic aspect of the customer journey, they can make that journey visually and atmospherically cohesive, delivering a unified look and feel regardless of whether the customer is interacting with the brand online or in person.
Embedded in our evolutionary hardwiring, in any environment humans once entered, we would automatically look for safety and security, i.e. is this space safe, and can this environment provide me with the sustenance I need? Nowadays, we don’t consciously need to do that anymore, but we do still unconsciously register these things. Being aware of that, PSPs who understand that designs can influence how consumers feel, use and act in an environment, can advise brands on printed interior designs. Here, customised printed décor, signage, promotional print and POS materials – and even packaging – can combine to move the customer’s emotional needle from ‘Ok’ to ‘Wow’.
Today’s consumer has high expectations of the products they buy and the brands they buy from. In an ever more competitive landscape, PSPs can transform their business by understanding these principles and establish themselves as a trusted adviser to their customers. Ultimately, those who get it right and help marketers tap into their audiences’ emotions to stand out and be remembered for the right reasons will reap the positive reviews and recommendations that can be rocket fuel for growth.