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#12 human insights12 things every brand should know

Emotion is a crucial component in building strong relationships between brands

and people – however, building brands for the unconscious is still a challenge.

In order to measure emotions effectively, it is important for marketers and

researchers to equip themselves with the latest evidence from neuroscience

research.

We have compiled 12 human insights across different brands and categories

providing for each of them a specific action/takeaway - translating the science into

actionable insights that can leverage your brand and get closer to your consumers

and shoppers.

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: evolution has wired our brains for storytelling

- a story puts our whole brain to work…01

actionYour brand needs to have a story that activates mirror neurons

(empathy)…make them feel what you want them to feel

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: faces are so important to humans that we have a

specific brain region to process them - they are key to how we emotionally interact with others

02

actionClose up shots of faces can be used to generate emotional engagement

and drive attention. Physical distance is emotional distance!

@crisbalanzo

actionEither showing food (or emphasising its absence) will make consumers

pay attention as their ‘primitive’ brain goes to work

Human insight: our primitive brain loves seeing food! Our survival instinct kicks in and leads to preferential activation03

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: we are attracted by negative news (survival instincts)04

actionShocking campaigns can be used to impact/change behaviour.

However, beware, too much negativity can cause repression and lose

its impact in the messaging

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: our brains love numbers and clear benefits. They

like to be shown evidence of a product’s superiority or problem solving – this helps our post-rationalisation and decision-making

05

actionIf you have a competitive advantage communicate it and stick with it!

Although demonstrating the product may affect the rational likeability of

the ad, powerful product demos are attractive to our brain

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: humour generates emotional engagement, putting the whole brain to work06

actionJust because something is funny it does not mean that it is emotionally

engaging - when you use humour be careful otherwise you are in

danger of losing effectiveness and the impact of the brand

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: in store visual attention data has shown that 2/3rds

of product’s fixations are on the color and shapes07

actionDo not make changes to your pack without a proper understanding of

these visual cues that your consumers use to recognise your pack

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: everything in the brain is a combination of nature

and nurture. Culture comes into play, which affects behaviour, which

then affects the brain. From birth (and even in the womb), a baby is

labelled as a girl or boy and treated a certain way as a result.

.

08

actionMen and women’s unconscious response to advertising is very

different, designing the execution to target them effectively is essential

if proper cut-through is being achieved

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: memory is the glue of our experiences (Eric Kandel)09

actionCampaigns should not exist in isolation. Linking key creative elements

across TV, print, digital and point of sale can maximize effectiveness

and increase conversion.

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: we are wired to respond to music. Pleasant music

boosts serotonin, a chemical responsible for good feelings and also engages the hippocampus which handles long term memory…

10

actionSoundtracks have a big effect on our unconscious emotional

experience – choose carefully before you make a big investment. The

wrong soundtrack can spoil an otherwise flawless execution

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: brands have an implicit value - mental associations and attributions that provide value to the objects around us 11

actionShow labels when packs are shown and point out the direction: people

will follow!

@crisbalanzo

Human insight: emotions are universal but not feelings. We can

measure emotions and interpret them universally however the feeling,

the perception of this subjective experience varies greatly between cultures

12

actionWhen working with global brands we need to identify cross cultural

differences as this has an impact in the emotional engagement

A part of Creston Unlimited

Get in touch to know how how to leverage emotion in your

communications and turn emotional engagement into brand

growth

From science to insights to activation

crisbalanzo@walnutunlimited.com