Make Mouths – and Eyes - Water with Emotional Branding
Are you making the most of edible emotions in your food marketing?
The other day, right, I was doing a little bit of basic food shopping at my local overpriced convenience store, and I was presented with a choice between three brands of peas. Each of them cost over £1 but under £2, so the price couldn’t really be a factor in the decision. And when it came to the health or size-of-tin factor I figured a) peas are peas and b) if needs be, I could always pop any leftovers into a Tupperware box in the fridge until the next day.
So I was left with one more choice: the brand. And this was where things got easy pea-sy (sorry, couldn’t resist).
Farrow’s Giant Marrowfat Peas was the clear winner.
But why?
Emotional Marketing.
Right there and then, if I were to choose my spot on Secret Ingredient Marketing’s Edible Emotions Wheel™ – the nifty and circular way to understand emotional branding according to the consumer’s emotional state – I would have sat curled up under a blanket in the ‘Comfort’ section. A wonderful place where familiarity, cosiness, security and nostalgia dictate my decision-making.
An example of emotional branding with a tin of Farrow’s Giant Marrowfat Peas being held by a woman’s hand in a kitchen
Sunday lunch in the 1980s
I’m gonna get all Pat from Ghosts now, but back in the 80s, Sundays in my house were all about family-friendly TV on one of the four channels, having a bath before the start of the new school week and best of all, steamy comfort food.
For lunch, my mum would cook a Sunday roast, some kind of hot pudding and custard-based dessert, and then tea (for I was from north of Watford Gap) was tuna sandwiches and homemade raspberry buns. Aww jeah.
But it was the memory of the Sunday roast that Farrow’s inadvertently tapped into that day a couple of weeks ago, at a shop whose prices were the equivalent of a working man’s salary only fifty years ago.
With Radio 1 buzzing away in the background, my mum would open a tin of Farrow’s Marrowfat Peas, but leave a little of the lid attached to the can, then pop the whole thing into the oven just as the chicken was reaching a golden-skinned sizzle, the potatoes were fluffy on the inside and crisp on the outside, and the condiments were placed in the middle of the kitchen table.
Once everything was up to temp, Mum would whip the tea towel off her shoulder and use it to pull everything, including the hot tin of peas, from the oven. Then she’d tip the tin up to allow a small portion of peas to tumble onto a corner of each plate. Happy Sunday!
Peas, lots and lots of peas – ready for some yummy food marketing
Emotional branding is the perfect condiment for food marketing
If a Farrow’s tin of peas could send me back to a glorious, 1980s childhood scene thanks to the barely-altered brand packaging and logo that screams “1970s production line”...
…imagine what a whole website of copy and content could do for your brand.
A strange paradox of our times is that, although the general public has terribly short attention spans compared to the average person in the 1980s, we marketers also have so many more opportunities to talk about our products – directly and in some considerable depth – with our customers.
Love it, loathe it, or suffer its necessity, storytelling is the way to many a customer’s heart. Right now, we have the chance to communicate at length on product packaging, websites, blog posts, direct marketing, emailing and social media posts.
No matter whether you sit on the ‘Wellness’ side of the Edible Emotions Wheel™ or even the ‘Adventure’ side, emotions and food play so nicely together.
Don’t believe me?
OK, consider health and wellness retailer, Holland and Barrett’s latest campaign. Their home page contains the slogan
““NEW FOOD THAT LOVES YOU BACK””
Emotional? It’s literally got the word ‘love’ in there! You eat the food and the food is so good for you that it actually loves you back. ‘Mazing.
Or conversely, imagine a holiday of a lifetime in Thailand where the memories of the adventurous spicy, zingy street food you ate didn’t follow you home and become part of your travel stories (for good or for bad…).
We’re hardwired to feel emotional when we eat something delicious, no matter what our original motivation was.
Emotional marketing can be crucial in a crisis
Times are tough right now – the cost of living crisis, post-pandemic uncertainties, the death of the high street, managing the work/ life balance and on and on – so The Grocer magazine has actually suggested that emotional branding is essential for this, a time of emotional crisis.
When it comes to brands selling something that is good value in the long run, as opposed to simply ‘cheap’ or ‘discount’, the advice is:
““Tell the right positive story and you can bring forward that sense of satisfaction, and in turn good value, from the future into the present moment.””
Even in a time of financial uncertainty, a deep and meaningful brand story will actually increase customer loyalty, and generate a stronger emotional engagement between them and your brand.
Are you ready, brands? Start talkin’
I hate to go for the hard sell here, but it’s very simple and very important.
Hire a great copywriter to tap into consumer emotions and you will have a loyal follower, advocate and customer through thick and thin.
If you’re a loved, established brand, appeal to their sense of nostalgia.
If you’re a new, adventurous brand, show people how much you care about their burning ambitions.
I say it a lot on this website, but I know you already have a great product – now it’s time to tell the world.
Tell your story. From your heart to theirs.