The FELT experience

How did you feel when you woke up on Tuesday?

Raring to go after the summer or ready to hit the snooze button ‘til spring?

Warm as toast lying there or regretting leaving the window open?

Full of optimism for the week ahead or with an impending sense of doom?

You probably can’t remember.

But you’ll have felt something, that’s for sure.

The same’s true in any situation.

Sometimes it’s a pre-conscious affect. A lift or dip in mood. 

Sometimes it’s a fully conscious feeling, sitting right there on the surface.

Often it’s somewhere in between. Not sub-conscious, no one talks about that any more.

And not unconscious either, anything felt can’t really be unconscious.

Emotions are there in every aspect of life.

So it’s odd there’s still a debate about their role in relation to brands.

I don’t think there is when it comes to advertising. The industry seems to talk with one voice about generating an emotional response.

When it comes to brand strategy – in case you hadn’t noticed – there’s more of a divide.

Some of us still follow the simple logic that consumers don’t just buy product for what they do, they also buy them for how they make them feel.

That covers a lot more than their reaction to advertising. It’s the complete experience of coming into contact with the brand.

The cleverest brands make that consistent. That’s very hard.

One reason why it’s hard is our memories are unreliable. Memories aren’t like hard drives, they’re rebuilt in the moment. Sometimes that’s better than what actually happened, sometimes worse. Dreams and nightmares.

All of which is another way of saying the current story built on mental availability, category entry points and distinctive brand assets is just that – a story. You can believe it if you want.

But don’t try and tell me that brands aren’t a felt experience.

There’s a catch, though, and it’s a big one.

If you’re going to be consistent, you have to focus on a particular feeling.

I don’t mean one of the eight basic emotions in psychology - joy, sadness, trust, disgust, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation. Even Cadbury’s discovered the limitation of a joyful drumming gorilla (I still think he looked a bit sad too).

I mean getting properly specific. A single strand of connection.

It’s like asking if I really mean ‘connection’ or is it more affiliation or togetherness or comradeship or belonging or bonding or devotion?

Is it ‘Brothers In Arms’ by Dire Straits or ‘Into My Arms’ by Nick Cave?

In the end, it depends which feels right.

Closeness, that’s the word.