Consumers think with both their rational and emotional brains. Study after study shows that when people buy, they’re led by emotion first. Logic shows up later to justify the money they’ve spent (or are about to spend)—especially when they’re indulging wants, not just needs.
Here’s what recent behavioral research continues to show about shopping habits:
- Neuroscience studies find that when people evaluate brands, affective responses (feelings and past experiences) often drive choices as much as, or more than, factual feature lists.
- Advertising research consistently shows that an ad’s emotional impact strongly influences purchase intent—sometimes more than its factual content.
- “Likeability” remains a strong predictor of whether an ad will help sales—usefulness and credibility matter, but people buy from brands they enjoy.
- Positive feelings toward a brand tend to correlate with stronger loyalty than purely rational judgments alone.
- Emotions help explain the pull of brand names over generics—ongoing branding creates familiarity and feeling that compound over time.
Okay—those findings track with common sense and decades of marketing practice. The real question is how businesses can harness emotions to connect with customers in a way that’s authentic and sustainable. Use the following tactics and examples to guide you.
Positive Emotions = Long-Term ROI
Emotions drive everyday decisions. They’re what get people out of bed for a 6 AM shift or push them through one more mile on the treadmill. The same is true in business: emotions are why customers choose brands that stand out and feel right.
The disconnect is that many marketers optimize for what makes them happy: clicks, pageviews, time on site, and conversion rates.
Remember that conversion optimization is a process, not a moment. Think end-to-end experience, not just the five minutes when someone signs a contract or checks out.
Prioritize long-term relationships over short-term wins. That mindset compounds.
Negotiation research from Michigan Ross and others shows that constructive, positive emotional displays tend to improve joint outcomes and preserve relationships—whereas negative framing often does the opposite. That’s the shift to design for: tone that builds value instead of anxiety.
Zappos is famous for building positive emotion into the entire journey, not just the sale. The goal isn’t to make customers happy once; it’s to keep them delighted before, during, and after purchase.
Most companies treat call centers as a cost. Zappos treats support as a brand stage. Reps aren’t chained to rigid scripts—they’re encouraged to be present, listen deeply, and let their personalities shine. The company has even logged marathon-length support calls (its record topped ten hours), which underscores the culture’s emphasis on genuine care.
Make customers genuinely happy and you earn loyalty that competitors can’t easily disrupt.
Engaging the Senses
Online marketing is visual-first, but you aren’t limited to a flat, two-dimensional experience. The more senses you evoke, the easier it is for people to imagine your product in their lives.
Invite customers to picture an experience with your product. Use sound with explainers, demos, or webinars. Use motion to show outcomes. Use interactivity to reduce uncertainty and drive confidence.
When Spotify launched in the U.S., it paired simple visuals with a memorable soundtrack to communicate value in seconds—no complex production required.
Coastal, an ecommerce retailer for contacts and glasses, uses a real-time “virtual try-on” so shoppers can see how frames look on their own faces—bridging the gap between screen and reality.
Brand Personality
People use “personality” to describe people they know—friends, coworkers, family. It’s the mix of qualities that makes someone distinct.
Personalities live in the eye of the beholder. People love some, they dislike others. Brands are no different.
It can feel odd to say a brand has a personality, yet people talk about it constantly because customers feel it constantly.
What Is a Brand Personality?
A brand personality is the set of attributes that give an organization a distinct character. Some brands have striking, unmistakable personalities; others feel generic. Strong personalities cluster around a tight set of traits customers can name.
Great personalities don’t happen by accident. They’re designed, documented, and reinforced.
Moosejaw offers a good reference point. The outdoor retailer’s voice has long been playful, experimental, and self-aware—using fun promos and offbeat copy without sacrificing clarity.
Where Do Brand Personalities Come From?
Leadership can define any personality—fun-loving, serious, professional, or a unique blend.
What matters most is defining it clearly and early. The process should include the whole team—not just a handful of managers.
Why? Because the people closest to the work bring your personality to life. Product, partnerships, service, and support all reflect the identity you set
Who Is Responsible for Your Company’s Brand Identity?
The short answer? Everyone.
Your brand personality should show up in marketing copy, social posts, customer emails, sales decks, and product microcopy. Executives, managers, and entry-level teammates should be able to state—and embody—your brand traits.
Your people are your brand. Hire, train, and partner with folks who live your core values. Shared values make consistent execution easier.
Culture, marketing, and design work best together. To align them, start with a clear, top-down strategy and reinforce it daily.
How Do You Define Your Company’s Brand Identity?
Brand identity won’t materialize out of thin air. It takes deliberate planning. You’ll likely need a cross-functional team, and a consultant can help if you have the budget. This asset unifies product, marketing, design, and customer communication—so it’s worth the rigor.
Use these steps to get started:
- List keywords that describe your current brand image. Invite the entire team. Use a whiteboard, shared doc, or spreadsheet—whatever helps ideas flow.
- List keywords that describe how you want your brand to be perceived. Involve the team again. Compare lists to reveal gaps between “is” and “want.”
- Trim to 2–3 core phrases. It’s hard, but necessary. Real people need to recall and apply these traits quickly; dozens of words won’t stick.
- Create a message architecture—a prioritized hierarchy of communication goals that define your brand’s highest-impact attributes. Use shared, concrete terminology. Pick the format that suits your organization, but make it organized and clear.
- Create a style guide. Translate principles into practical rules for voice, tone, word choice, and examples. Keep it concise so teams actually use it.
Here’s an example of a simple brand style guide:
The simpler the guidance, the less friction teams face—and the more consistent your marketing becomes.
Avoiding Cheesiness
Emotions can go from effective to cringe fast. One moment you’re building rapport; the next, your message feels over the top and audiences tune out—or mock it.
How do you avoid that?
- Make honesty the default. Encourage blunt internal feedback so weak ideas get fixed (or cut) early.
- Gather diverse feedback. Don’t rely on a single cohort. Ask Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z to weigh in—tone lands differently by generation.
- Face-test with trusted customers. Use a small “sounding board” who will tell you the truth without sugarcoating.
- Design for audience needs. Some groups tolerate sentimental messaging; others prefer dry, direct communication. Match tone to context.
Because “cheesy” is subjective, the safest path is empathy: build messages from your audience’s point of view.
Creating Viral Campaigns
Some brands make virality look effortless. Dollar Shave Club famously used a hilarious video to acquire customers—seemingly overnight.
Behind the scenes, successful “viral” ideas follow patterns. You can’t guarantee breakout reach, but you can raise the odds by hitting the right emotions.
In a Harvard Business Review article, Kelsey Libert and Kristin Tynski outline how to improve your chances:
- Make people care (so they share). Lead with a powerful story, not a hard sell. Heavy branding signals “ad” and triggers quick dismissal. Don’t manipulate—respect your audience’s intelligence and needs.
- Map the emotions common in viral content. Their research found positive emotions dominate, while negative emotions can still work when paired with anticipation or surprise. Common emotions: curiosity, amazement, interest, astonishment, uncertainty, admiration.
- Connect your brand to the emotion without hijacking the message. Choose topics that naturally underscore your positioning and value.
- Favor ideas that contribute to the public good. When content helps people, they’re more inclined to share it widely.
Think bigger than your brand. Create genuine value and the audience will do the distribution.
The Unspoken Power of Delight
Delight can outperform any tagline. It’s the joy of watching a toddler navigate a smartphone, the lift you feel walking into a favorite boutique after a tough day, or the surprise of a free shipping upgrade when you needed it most.
Some leaders write delight off as “fluff.” It isn’t. While not every variable is measurable, delight correlates with repeat purchase, referrals, and lifetime value. Obsess less over proving every micro-metric and more over designing experiences customers rave about.
Delight doesn’t happen by accident. It’s designed into core functions:
- Product
- Marketing
- Account management/client services
- Aesthetics
Delight often evokes these emotions:
- Humor
- Inspiration
- Admiration
- Awe
- Surprise
Because “delight” sounds nebulous, you’ll need a concrete plan. Here’s how to make it real:
- Evaluate customer pain points. Study on- and off-site behavior, interview customers, and map journeys to surface moments that matter. Build personas from real insights.
- Define your brand promise. Distill the research into a one-to-two-sentence statement that sets expectations you can keep.
- Brainstorm specific actions that deliver that promise—features, policies, moments of surprise—and prioritize those with the highest customer impact.
Measure branding and delight at the macro level with trend metrics:
- Repeat Customers: Track the share of customers who return and how often.
- Word-of-Mouth: Use social shares and recommendations as proxies for advocacy.
- Average Order Value: Watch whether customers spend more over time.
- Lifetime Value: Monitor long-term revenue per customer as brand affinity grows.
- Market Share: Compare against top competitors to see if loyalty is translating into growth.
Delight pairs naturally with personality: delight is customer-centric; personality is brand-centric. Together, they make experiences people remember.
Staying Ethical
There’s a line between courting and manipulating customers. Emotions make people vulnerable, so handle them with care. Walk that line thoughtfully and treat people with respect.
Fear is a powerful—often abused—emotion.
Sometimes fear is appropriate, especially in matters of health and safety. This CDC ad, for example, aims to deter smoking by confronting a real threat:
The factor that most influences whether people act to avoid a threat is efficacy—the belief they can do something about it.
Yes, marketers can scare customers into buying. Should they? Not if fear is exaggerated or deceptive. If you’re communicating truthful risks and helping people avoid real problems, fear can be used responsibly.
Give your message a value test. Are you adding value to the world—or extracting it? If it’s the latter, change course.
Logitech provides a balanced example with a home video security message that echoes questions parents already ask. By normalizing the concern and offering a solution, the message reassures rather than exploits.
Here’s an ad that crosses the line: “If you aren’t totally clean, you are filthy.”
It’s questionable because it’s unreasonable. Yes, hands have germs—but implying people are covered in cockroaches (and letting them crawl on children) is sensational and inaccurate.
Many people have insect phobias; this kind of imagery can be needlessly distressing.
Emotional marketing touches vulnerabilities. Tread carefully—you don’t always know who you might alienate or anger.
Build Emotions Into Your Brand Community
Social media gives customers space to share what they think and feel—about your brand and beyond. Keep the dialogue open to encourage word-of-mouth. Problems arise when people vent about negative experiences.
Many companies default to deleting comments or moving conversations behind closed doors.
Don’t do that.
If an issue pops up, show there’s a real person behind the logo. Apologize, fix what you can, and offer a fair solution. Don’t fear public threads—be authentic, empathetic, and calm, even when emotions run hot.
FedEx modeled this well when a video of a careless package delivery driver went viral on YouTube. The company released an official video statement that essentially said, “We’re sorry. We’re addressing it,” and explained next steps.
Own mistakes, then demonstrate care through action.
Key Takeaways
- People buy based on feelings first, then justify with facts.
- Use emotion to connect human-to-human across your journey—not just at the point of sale.
- Not everything emotional is easily quantified. If you only chase what’s measurable, you risk missing relationship-building opportunities.
- Define brand personality from the top down and document it. Tools like message architectures and style guides keep teams aligned.
- Culture powers brand. Hire and develop people who embody your values so execution is consistent in support, sales, product, and marketing.
- Track delight and loyalty with macro metrics: lifetime value, average order value, repeat purchase rate, share of voice, and market share.
- Emotions make audiences vulnerable. Be respectful. Avoid manipulative fear tactics and ground your messages in truth and efficacy.
- Social channels are public forums for feelings. Don’t suppress criticism—solve problems transparently and build trust in the open.