A multitude of studies relative to how peoples’ emotions drive buying habits and marketing strategies have been conducted.

This data is more important than ever in today’s marketplace because of social media and the growing popularity of video as a marketing tool.

I challenge you to think of an advertisement you’ve seen in the last month (especially now in the holiday season!). Do you remember it because:

Chances are, an overwhelming number of you answered “number 3.” Lorraine Twohill, Senior VP of Global Marketing for Google, stated, “If we , we fail. It’s about emotion.”

Amidst all those studies on how emotion affects consumer’s buying decisions, it was discovered that if an individual suffers damage to the part of the brain that allows them to feel emotion, they have a very difficult time making decisions.

People are much more apt to engage with, and remember a brand that impacts them personally. Whether it’s an ad that reminds them of a childhood memory or evokes a personal struggle that they experienced and overcame.

In the book, Brand Immortality, in an analysis of 1,400 successful ad campaigns (key word: successful), the campaigns that revolved around emotional content did almost twice as well as factual ads (31% vs. 16%).

Apple, who has always been on the cutting edge of tapping into what their audience really wants, recently acquired an emotion-recognition technology company, Emotient. The technology this company has created is able to sense and identify up to 100,000 facial images a day.

Imagine someday, emotion-detection technology being available on iPhones, iPads and computer browsers as a way to dynamically engage with users and gauge reactions in real-time. 

On a slightly lower technological level, Facebook has already taken a step forward in being more available to their users’ emotions by expanding their “Like” feature to include a whole range of emotions to choose from, in letting others know how you feel about a post. 

Emotion-evoking marketing and advertising has always proven to be successful in not only attracting attention, but getting, and keeping loyal customers. With the quickly evolving technology, this marketing strategy needs to be at the forefront of any marketer’s mind when planning out how best to reach a certain target demographic. So, start pulling on those heartstrings and see how emotional you get when you see your ROI increase!