Emotions In Advertising

As a key member of the core team of Delhi’s leading advertising agency, I watch a lot of ads. A lot of ads are also shared between us as colleagues, friends or family members. Recently an ad was shared with me; the tag line was “You have got to watch this!” This got me thinking; what is it that makes an ad go viral? The answer is fairly simple; they make us feel something as human beings.


The concept is simple, if we go to a restaurant and get a free sample we are likely to be in a pleasant mood, have a good conversation with the staff and even neglect a few short comings, simply because as soon as we entered we were offered something free which brought about a sense of happiness in us. Similarly ad campaigns use a happy approach that make us act on that high soon after. They make us believe that this product will instill happiness in our lives if we have it. A very popular brand that uses happiness as its mantra is coca cola and it must be said that they do it very effectively with their awesome tag line “Open Happiness”

Another base emotion that we often come across in our life and in advertising campaigns is FEAR. Fear makes us jump up and spring in to action; despite it being associated to a negative feeling. It is a clever way of portraying the use of a product through a human beings primal instinct to protect what he loves. The key here is to prevent mishaps by the use of this product and remove a set of worries from our life. An example of this would be the drunken driving ads or the cigarette ads played before every movie.

 Sadness is another emotion that is often used by advertising professionals to convey a message about how their products can help prevent that feeling. A brilliant example of using sadness in advertising (Made everyone in Delhi’s leading advertising agency cry) comes from Met life Hong Kong that produced a heartbreaking ad about a single father and his daughter. The ad starts with a daughter listing all things her father does for her but the story really breaks through when she starts narrating how her father lies to her to keep her happy and not show his struggles.

Emotions play a huge role nowadays in advertising. It is imperative for aspiring ad gurus to know exactly what emotions are being portrayed by them while making an ad and if they are consistent with their client’s strategies and their entire campaign they are bound to be successful (more often than not). It is important to play on emotions but the message should be clear and uniform throughout the campaign. Consumers should not doubt the intentions of the product; they should believe in it, they should be moved by it. As said by one of the advertising greats  

”Creative without a strategy is ART; Creative with a strategy is ADVERTISING!”