Finally: Proof!

“Virtually all agency creative executives and many marketers have preached for decades that advertising works by making emotional connections, not rational appeals. It turns out, they were right, and are even more so over time—at least according to one new study.”

“Brand Keys, which has been surveying people about brand preference and what drives it for 25 years across more than 4.3 million interviews, has released findings from a meta-analysis of all that data. And it shows that emotional factors bypassed rational ones in a big way over time.”

“In 1997, the ratio between rational and emotional considerations in driving brand preference was about 60%-40% in favor of the rational, according to Brand Keys President and Founder Robert Passikoff. Now, the mean across all categories surveyed is closer to 80%-20% in favor of emotional over rational appeals.”

“Advertisers tend to make the mistake to think that entertainment is a replacement for emotional engagement,” Passikoff said. “It isn’t.”

All of this is taken from the article, “How Emotion Has Overtaken Reason in Driving Brand Choice” in AdAge. (subscription may be required)

Still, I hear liners on every radio station in America targeted at our brains (“more music,” “better variety,” blah blah blah) rather than our hearts.

The question is, Why?

I’ll answer that question tomorrow.