Study Shows Emotional Connection Currently More Pipe (or Hype) Dream Than Reality

Brands strive to build an emotional connection with consumers, but how many consumers actually respond to these efforts? This article reveals findings from a study of U.S. consumers about emotional connection to brands.

Was it the Valentine's Day holiday a few weeks ago that's behind the recent spate of pleas for brands to build an emotional love bond with buyers far beyond a product or service's price, features, and quality? Perhaps Cupid's arrows struck our old friend Marshal Cohen, Chief Industry Analyst at research firm NPD, who tackled a popular subject—building an emotional connection between brands and buyers—in a recent editorial piece in Brandweek. Writes Cohen, "With more and more consumers committed to spending their money even before they set foot inside a store, the challenge is this: How can you get them to commit to spending what's left of their money on your product or service? The answer, in a word, is connection. You've got to make an emotional (our emphasis) connection with your consumers."

Ad Age also felt the love the same week, with a piece from Kevin Roberts, author of The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Economy and CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, "Living in the Age of Attraction—Heart of the Matter: Marketers Must Connect Emotionally With Consumers," in which he predicts, "this year will see the emergence of the Attraction Economy. Driven by the fundamental shift in control from manufacturers and retailers to consumers, the future belongs to those who make emotional connections with them. "

Cohen and Roberts join the steady chorus of marketers singing the praises of emotional connection, a "must have" for consumers and companies alike, albeit a nebulously defined one. Taking a break from critical company memos, chairman of coffee house cult brand Starbucks Howard Shultz explained, "the fracturing of our humanity, the fracturing of trust in public institutions and corporations, has created significant cynicism. However, people want to be a part of something that they can believe in. They want to be associated with a product or service that they can rely on. Companies that are serving these emotional and human needs of the customers will really stand out amidst this cynical backdrop." Continues Marc Gobé, author of Emotional Branding, "by empowering consumers, brands are ultimately empowered themselves," and cautions there's "a huge difference between the concept of brand awareness and emotional connection. Being known doesn't mean that you are loved." And at the end of the day, you want to be loved. According to these folks and many others, buyers want to be engaged on some deeper level by the brands they purchase and firms need to relate to buyers in this way to stand out from the competition and ensure repeat business.

The idea of emotional connection of course isn't a new phenomenon. For years now, brand consultants have talked about the virtues of inspiring and channeling the passions of consumers for the good of the brand. Particularly as firms paid more attention to not just getting customers, but KEEPING them, engaging buyers on an emotional level that goes beyond rhyme or reason is perceived as the ultimate form of brand loyalty. "Emotional connections are universally important, and managing those emotional bonds pays off handsomely," maintains William J. McEwen of the Gallup Organization. Harley-Davidson and other cult brands point to the passions they inspire among buyers and credit this abiding love for much of their financial success. The pursuit of greater meaning cuts across categories and industries, and B2C and B2B markets. Everyone from GM's VP of marketing and advertising, to the CMO of industrial manufacturing and engineering company Emerson, to the CEO of JCPenney are talking about what their firms are doing to cultivate an emotional bond. Yet according to a new Copernicus and Greenfield Online study, this might be easier said than done.

Copernicus and Greenfield recently talked to a nationally representative sample of over 1000 American men and women, age 18 and above, about emotional connections in 50 product categories. Study participants were asked the following question: "Some people say that they have an 'emotional connection' with their favorite products and brands. They have a personal/emotional bond which goes beyond the product's obvious price, features, and quality. Other people say that they either like a brand or they dislike it. The notion of an emotional connection doesn't make any sense. Now thinking about your preferred brand in the categories listed below, please let us know whether you feel that you have a personal/emotional connection with that brand."

For all the talk—dare we say hype?—about fostering emotion bonds, just 20%-25% of consumers on average reported even a moderate emotional connection to a brand. The four categories with the largest percentage of consumers reporting a moderate or strong connection were:

• Cola soft drinks (39% reporting strong or moderate emotional connection)
• Beer (37%)
• Personal computers (33%)
• Ground coffee (31%)

The categories where consumers had the strongest emotional connection (the top box on our scale) were all beverages:

• Cola soft drinks (18% reporting a strong emotional connection)
• Beer (17%)
• Ground coffee (15%)

As an aside, Starbucks, the poster child of emo-marketing, might like to know that only 24% of Americans report a strong or moderate emotional connection to brands in the coffee shop category—just 8% have a strong connection and half have NO connection to their preferred brand in the category. Perhaps Mr. Shultz will want to circulate an addendum to his memo with this new information.

Interestingly—and this should make proponents of emotional connection happy—in most categories Americans ages 18-29 expressed the highest level of emotional connection to their favorite brands. In 43 of 50 product categories, younger people have a stronger connection than those who've hit the mid-century mark. For example, 50% of 18-29-year-olds have a moderate or strong emotional connection to their top soft drink brand compared to 35% of 50+ year-olds; 44% versus 33% for beer; and 42% versus 29% for PCs. The biggest difference between the two age groups is in the baby diaper category where 35% of young people report a moderate or strong bond compared to only 14% of the over 50 set, but this difference is likely explained by young people using the products and greater level of involvement in the category than older folks.

Amazingly, less than 10% of the population on average reports a strong emotional connection to brands. In 18 categories, the vast majority of consumers report absolutely no emotional connection to their preferred brands. The Aflac duck may be beloved, but disability insurance tops the list—75% of consumers report absolutely no emotional connection to their preferred brand. [Aflac's new CMO was obviously on to something with his recent move to dump the duck.]

Other categories include:

• On-line stock trading sites (72%)
• Big office supply retail stores (71%)
• Rx erectile dysfunction medications (70%)

Now this surprising absence of wide spread emotional connection could be because companies simply aren't doing a good job inspiring and channeling consumers' affections. Or it could be that the notion of "an emotional connection" just isn't as universally valid as it's believed—not every buyer may need to feel an emotional bond to the brands they regularly buy to be a profitable, loyal customer. Perhaps the need for emotional connection is a function of age or a tendency of a generation. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that "emotional connections" operate at an unconscious, even mysterious level and can't be simply measured by a survey. Or it could be a combination of these factors and/or many others.

At the very least, marketers should consider the results of the Copernicus/Greenfield study as a clear indication that in marketing as in life, when it comes to relationships, talk is cheap. Whether consumers need to have an emotional bond with brands or not, the fact remains most do not report having one.

-March 2007

This content was provided by Copernicus Marketing Consulting and Research. Visit their website at www.copernicusmarketing.com.