Anyone for emotions?

I have written elsewhere that there are only four ways of selling via direct mail –

• By price
• By benefit
• By asking an interesting question
• By being funny

 Which raises the question – what about selling by emotion?   After all, pick up a magazine or watch a TV advert and there are plenty of examples of emotional advertising.

Charities do it quite blatantly – as in…

• Q: If I sponsor a child, what will I get in return
• A: More than you could possibly imagine.

Film makers do it too.  The advert for “Good Night and Good Luck” is primarily made up of a series of individual words in block caps, with the source of the word quote underneath.  As in…

                    “Mesmerising”
                    New York Observer 

                    “Compelling”
                    Empire

And so on.

In a very real sense emotional advertising is just another form of benefit advertising.  The Nivea Hand advert that runs with the headline “HANDS THAT REVEAL YOU. NOT YOUR AGE” makes this plain. 

Thus the emotional content is often tucked inside the benefit – as with the Center Parcs advert under the headline, “And the children thought we came here just for them,” over a picture of a woman’s face, eyes closed.  (Actually the picture also has a couple of hands around her neck, but I am sure they are meant to represent a therapist rather than midnight attacker.)

Pure emotionalism without benefit does exist, of course, as in the headline MEN ARE BACK over a picture of a Peugeot 407 Coupé.   (Make of it what you will, but you probably get to the point to this is a car for real men, rather than hairdressers).

Toyota meanwhile counter with “Today, Tomorrow, Toyota” which goes somewhere quite different.

But where does this take us in terms of direct mail?

These headlines are perfectly usable in direct mail.  Those who will be offended by “Men are back” (or by my silly hairdresser comment) will be offended whatever the medium.  The fact is, what the advertiser is doing is pitching for one segment of the market and going for it.  Peugeot feel that their market will respond to this, so they don’t care if they upset others.

This is actually a good way to advertise in terms of sales – in fact it is so perfectly obviously a good way to advertise that I really can’t understand why people (not of course members of this group and its website) write to me and tell me that they were offended.  An ad that offends no one (and remember people can get offended by the slightest thing) tends to be fairly poor at selling to anyone.  Stay in the middle and not much happens, go towards the edge and you get a reaction.

Which is not a total digression since emotional adverts are, by their nature more likely to offend people than anything else – but conversely they can also pull in more replies.

I’m only occasionally asked to write something emotional, but the number of occasions in which the instruction is “write us an emotional advert” are rising.   Because I don’t see too many other people around writing emotional direct mail (except for charities) I’m wandering off in my own direction on this one – maybe someone else has got a different way forward.

What I do offer my clients is a set of standard magazine advert headlines to see if they really do want to go down this route.   If the answer is no, I don’t want an advert that starts in this way then we are probably not going to find an emotional advert that will work for them.   Here’s just a handful of stock openers from this weekends magazines…

Even in black it's unmissable

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Fine romances are still possible

A new place to be

The point is that such headlines can be used to advertise almost anything.  Most of us would probably guess that the first advert is for a car, but it could be for a dress or a computer.  The second fits well with a holiday destination, but could also be a car, dress or computer.  The same goes for the other two as well.

Which suggests that maybe emotional ads are going to be harder to do for the more prosaic aspects of reality.  If I try to advertise a mailing list using “Fine romances are still possible” I am most likely to revert to humour, and I think I’d be pushed to get the emotion out of a set of classroom furniture. But then no one has ever asked, so I have never tried.

But flipping through the magazines I see emotional adverts for bread, so perhaps I should persevere a little longer.

Free analysis of your mailshot

This article is written by Tony Attwood, Chairman of Hamilton House Mailings Ltd.  If you would like to discuss the writing or design of your mailing campaign, or indeed a single mailshot, with Tony, without cost or obligation, just call 01536 399 000, or email Creative@hamilton-house.com   You can also send Tony a copy of your latest advert and he will call you back with his thoughts on how your response rate could be raised - again without cost or obligation.