experiEmotive™ Analytics Develops Innovative Telephone Interviewing for Emotional Branding - Lets Companies See How Consumers Unconsciously Feel about Their Brands

May 11, 2005 -- More and more the marketing world is recognizing that people’s emotions and feelings significantly drive their purchase decisions. Experts have made this clear in books such as The Marketing Power of Emotion (O’Shaughnessy and O’Shaughnessy, 2003); Emotional Marketing: The Hallmark Way of Winning Customers for Life (Robinette and Brand, 2001); Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People (Gobe, 2001); and Emotional Branding: How Successful Brands Gain the Irrational Edge (Travis, 2000).

Inspired to help marketers leverage the power of emotions, experiEmotive™ analytics has recently developed a telephone interviewing technique that addresses what has been a challenge in properly exploring emotions and feelings for marketing purposes. Common marketing research techniques like focus groups and traditional telephone interviews have been criticized for only revealing emotions and feelings on a common-sense or vernacular level, not taking into account the fact that emotions and feelings operate in large part unconsciously. For example, in his 2003 book How Customers Think: Essential Insights Into the Mind of the Market, Gerald Zaltman says, “Fixed-response questions, in particular, won’t get at consumers’ most important thoughts and feelings if the manager or researcher has not first identified them by penetrating consumers’ unconscious thought.” Zaltman later says, “… [focus groups are not effective when developing and evaluating new product ideas, testing ads, or evaluating brand images. Nor do they get at deeper thoughts and feelings among consumers.”

What differentiates experiEmotive’s technique is that it uses dialogue that evokes responses from a less consciously-filtered state of mind allowing less conscious emotions and feelings to surface. Technically, respondents talk to interviewers more from an alpha versus a beta brain wave state. In other words, consumers are responding from a more relaxed state of mind, less actively filtering what they say through the reasoning part of their brains.

Why is this important and what does it do for clients? Addressing these questions, Paul Conner, CEO (Chief Emotive Officer) of experiEmotive™ analytics, says, “Research in many areas of study is finding that our decisions and behavior are strongly, if not exclusively, dictated by our emotions and feelings. So correctly measuring them is critical. Brand managers who have an intimate understanding of their brand’s competitive emotional profile – that is, how people feel about their brand versus their competitors’ brands – will be better equipped to design and market their brand so that people feel better about it.”

experiEmotive’s Emotional Profiling technique is new and ready for use. The steps in conducting an Emotional Profiling study using this technique include:
• Pre-recruiting respondents online based on client specifications;
• Collecting brand preference information online during the pre-recruiting survey;
• Having qualified respondents call an 800 number to complete a 30-minute automated telephone interview.

During the automated telephone interview, respondents answer questions in a relaxed alpha state of mind, relating their feelings toward the targeted and competitive brands in customized situations. For instance, respondents may share how they feel about a brand when they hear about it, when they think about it, when they see it, when they imagine buying it, or when they imagine using it.

“Tests of the technique have resulted in smooth, easy interviews for respondents and promising data that can differentiate brands from the standpoint of how people feel about them,” said Mr. Conner. “For instance, I was surprised to see how angry and threatened certain people felt about one brand of bath soap, but how nurtured and secure they felt about another.”

Sample sizes, the number of brands explored, and costs vary for each project and are customized based on client needs.

experiEmotive™ analytics is a consumer research company that specializes in discovering the “experience-to-emotional motive chains” that drive consumer behavior. Discovering these chains enables more effective emotionally-fueled marketing, particularly product designs, brands, positionings, advertising, and sales and customer service approaches. To learn more about experiEmotive™ analytics visit www.experiemotive.com.