How to Evoke Emotion with Your Advertising

Serious money gets spent on advertising every year.

Last year, for example, businesses were predicted to fork out almost $240 billion on traditional and digital ads combined. It goes without saying that this is a monumental amount of money!

And with big budgets come serious expectations.

No business can afford to fork out cash without seeing a reasonable return. In the pursuit of maximizing their ad spend ROI, then, businesses are forever seeking clever ways to drive sales.

In this way, they’ve come to realize that ads that evoke emotion work better than others.

To trigger someone’s emotions- to pull on their heartstrings or get them amped up- is to compel them to purchase something! But how do you do it?

Let us enlighten you.

Keep reading for 7 tips on evoking emotion in your ads.

1. Include Music

Our first tip for triggering emotion is to think hard about the music you use in the ad.

Almost every ad involves background music of some sort. However, it’s rare for ads to take full advantage of the power of a song or tune.

Music has been part of human life for millennia! We’ve been making and sharing it forever and a day. It’s hard to overstate how significant its impact can be on us.

The right soundtrack can elicit sadness, melancholy, joy, anger…anything.

The exact song or piece you incorporate into an ad depends entirely on the subject matter and goals you have. However, the key point is to realize the profound impact it can have when done well. Never rush the choice of music for an advert.

2. Include People

The most emotional ads out there usually have people in the starring roles.

There’s a reason for that:

It helps the viewer connect with the ad itself. Of course, getting an average actor to stand up and talk about a product will never work wonders! Using people to best effect in ads takes greater tact.

For instance, children and elderly people are two age-groups that can elicit serious emotion. Both are packed full of symbolism: children with hope, life and purity; the elderly with nostalgia, sadness and love. Put them together and you’re onto a winner!

Again, though, the way you use them depends on the ad itself.

Furthermore, you don’t need actual people to be involved. Sometimes graphics and cartoons can be used with greater effect.

3. Include Connection

The trick to using people in your ads is creating a sense of connection.

You have to help the viewer connect with the problems, lives, and stories of the characters in the video. The power of using people in a production is largely to do with a sense of connection.

The goal is to get the viewer to watch the ad and look around them at the people in their lives. Showing people on-screen in the depths of despair, infused with the joy of living, or battling a demon of some kind will always elicit emotion.

We’re empathic beings. Seeing emotions on our screens will naturally trigger something inside us. We’ll see the happiness, sadness, longing, grief, fear, and so on, and feel it too.

4. Include Memories and History

What happens when you think about your own past?

It engenders a sense of nostalgia, right? You look back with a combination of sadness, longing, and joy at the time that’s come and gone. It imbues the present moment with a gravitas it didn’t have before.

That nostalgia can be used to great effect in ads.

Think about creating adverts that focus on some element of the past, or history. Again, showing elderly people is one way of doing it. Another would be showing old grainy footage, or painting the screen in sepia-tones.

Want help with this process? This advertising agency might be of value.

5. Include Universal Human Needs

Humans are funny.

We’re all the same and yet utterly unique at the same time!

Use the shared characteristics to your advantage in adverts. Examples include the need to belong, to have a roof over our heads, to be accepted, to be loved, and so on.

Think about how heartbreaking it is to see someone without these things. It reminds us of a time when we were in the same situation and shows us how lucky we are to be out of it now.

Remember: connection.

Seeing other people in a bind (in real-life or on-screen) is a sure-fire way to help people relate. They’ll naturally come away feeling a certain way, depending on the exact content.

6. Include Animals

Animals are another way to elicit emotion.

Look at a puppy or a kitten.

It’s impossible not to feel a certain way about them! They’re just cute and adorable and you want to cuddle them forever. The strength of the reaction can be disarming.

You can imagine how easy it would be to manipulate someone’s emotions then. Think about ads from dog shelters showing sad and abandoned puppies. They make you want to rush down to the nearest pound to adopt one straight away.

Include animals and you’re onto a winner in terms of emotional responses.

7. Leverage the Time of Year

People feel differently at certain times of year.

Think about the way you feel during summer, at Christmas, or Thanksgiving. Each occasion and time of year is filled with all manner of emotions.

Certain times are renowned as family occasions; as periods to come together. Others are a time for partying and spending time outdoors. Some will be darker, harsher, and altogether more challenging.

Consider the general feel of a certain time of year and use it to your advantage in your ads.

Time to Evoke Emotion!

Businesses spend megabucks on adverts every single year.

As such, they have to find ways to make it worth their while. Seeing an adequate return is reliant on eliciting a response from their target audience.

As it happens, ads that evoke emotion are some of the best at doing exactly that.

Hopefully, this post has provided some useful insight into how to elicit emotions in your ads for the coming year.

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