In case you haven’t been to your local Target or Walgreens recently…the holidays are here! With the holiday season, comes an overload of emotional marketing campaigns. This week I was treated to an ad from overseas thanks to some Facebook friends. The ad is from Sainsbury’s a supermarket chain in the UK.
Did you make it through the entire video…without getting a warm, fuzzy feeling inside? Ads such as this one are starting to pop up left and right with the start of the holiday season. Another recent ad that hit the emotional mark was created by John Lewis, a department store chain. The Guardian even created a poll for people to vote for their favorite. Here in the states, companies such as Kohl’s are also revving their emotional engines in hopes of connecting with consumers this holiday season (Rodriguez, 2014). Check out its 2014 holiday campaign:
Now, I must admit, I’m a sucker for emotional advertising but I don’t always think it’s the best choice for all brands, or for making the much needed sale. Even though these ads leave most consumers or potential consumers with a nice, positive feeling about the brand, marketers and advertisers should also give a better idea of what they are trying to sell. I think that sometimes the product and/or service get lost when this type of communication strategy is used. I believe that although it is important to focus on the feelings of the consumer, the company should also be concerned with communicating the brand.
I see this as a problem because what if the people never figure it out or look away before the brand name appears at the end? Without a clear idea of what is being sold, it is possible that someone might view the ad and not make the connection the company hopes for. On the other hand, some of these companies may be putting these ads together with the hope of them becoming viral and just taking off from there. Nonetheless, it continues to seem like a risk many brands are willing to take in order to appeal to consumers in a more sensitive and human way.
Without a clear idea of what is being sold, it is possible that someone might view the ad and not make the connection the company hopes for. On the other hand, some of these companies may just be putting these ads together with the hope of them becoming viral and just taking off from there. Nonetheless, it continues to seem like a risk many brands are willing to take in order to appeal to consumers in a more sensitive and human way.
In fact, these ads reminded me of a similar type of commercial I grew up watching. In Florida, Publix, a popular supermarket chain in the Southeast, releases some powerful emotional ads around big days such as Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving. Here is one of my favorites:
Guess who went out and bought the cute salt and pepper shakers? Me! In fact, these sold out in many stores. Maybe I’m just biased toward what I know and recognize but I think Publix has just the right mix of emotional advertising while at the same time making its product (food and food-related items) the main star of the ad.
So, did it work, did any of these make you want to buy what they’re selling or get you to at least feel connected to the brand? Or are you still sitting there dreaming of flying reindeer?
References
The Guardian. (2014, November 13). Who has the best Christmas advert: John Lewis or Sainsbury’s? – poll. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/media/poll/2014/nov/13/sainsburys-john-lewis-christmas-advert-which-is-best
Rodriguez, A. (2014, November 9). Kohl’s upping TV spend for holiday campaign. Advertising Age. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/kohl-s-upping-tv-spend-holiday-campaign/295764/
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