Cathartic Advertising: How Brands Can Better Emotionally Connect with Their Audience
cathartic /kəˈθɑːtɪk/ adjective
providing psychological relief through the open expression of strong emotions; causing catharsis; “crying is a cathartic release".
In this day and age, with all our advancements in technology, advertisements have to go the extra mile just to guarantee a spot in your memory. And tough as it is to convince your viewers to buy your product with a corny slogan, tougher still to create a meaningful and quality commercial with more than emotional knee-jerkers.
It’s not easy produce videos that don’t just stick to your mind, but linger in your heart. From inspirational to nostalgic, from historical to futuristic, a great commercial can transport you to anywhere, to any situation, and back in just a few short minutes, even less, but when the ad is so blatantly trying to sell you a product, its painful results bark at you with a “Hey you! Buy this now!” rather than a reassuring “Hello there. This might be exactly what you need.”
Quality advertising should organically emanate emotion from within rather than feel like an unnatural pressure forced upon you. Great advertising can even be a sort of cathartic release to viewers of all walks of life. This is where we go back, waaaay back and invoke the classics.
Enters Mister Aristotle who extensively studied drama in his “Poetics”. The philosophy master argues that one of the aims of drama is to induce “tragic pleasure” in the audience, that plot is essential for a good story to happen, even more important than character development. Let’s admit it, we love to experience strong emotions and even sometimes sadness, as it helps us identify with the character and in the process “purge” our fears and feelings of pity. For catharsis to happen, the character must be “good, appropriate, realistic and consistent”.
A research published in 2019 stated that emotions are strategically deployed in contemporary advertising, suggesting that “emotions play an important role in decision making, and consumers’ feelings play an important role in the formation of attitudes and judgments about advertisements and the corresponding brands.”
While positive emotions expressed in the advertisements lead to higher levels of brand retention and positive reactions towards the ad and the brand itself, some cases do in fact show that showcasing negative emotions in advertisements have the capability to stimulate a stronger emotional reaction from consumers. This is done by invoking their feelings in terms of personal experiences, collective actions and identification in a community which represents a necessary sense of belonging. While the textbook ad structure is designed solely to sell the product, new-age advertising sells an idea that sends the consumer to different worlds and showcases the beauty of what the product can do for you, and emotionally appealing ads tend to gain more attention and affection from the public as these ads are more likely to be remembered with ease due to the shared sentiment through story.
In late 2015, a pair of German commercial directors, Dorian Lebherz and Daniel Titz, released a special commercial for the Diageo-owned Scotch whisky, Johnnie Walker, entitled, “Dear Brother”. The filmmakers tell the story of two brothers returning to the land of their childhood for one last time, showcasing the beautiful Scottish countryside as the brothers walk along them. The remarkable cinematography and coloring accompanied by a spoken word poem by Johnny “B.A.N.G.” Reilly, and the eerie yet sentimental score of Renée Andre Abe, truly accent their brotherhood and the bittersweet plot twist to come.
Without taking the attention away from the character driven plot, the directors said that the brand Johnnie Walker naturally found its place in the story as its origins are from the breathtaking Scottish countryside. From Johnnie Walker’s former slogan “Keep Walking,” the duo was able to create a sentimental story of resilience and soul searching. The brother feels the presence of his now departed sibling. “Despite all the melancholy there is always some optimistic outlook,” said the directors. Although the one-and-a-half minute advertisement was not technically released by Johnnie Walker, the branded commercial hit the front page of reddit with close to two-million YouTube views in the span of a few days thanks to the emotionally connective storytelling of Dorian and Daniel.
On Valentine’s Day of 2016, the famous Filipino fast-food chain Jollibee re-invented their online social presence by turning to a more cinematographic approach in their videos and releasing “The Jollibee Stories” or “Kwentong Jollibee”. This campaign showcased a series of short films wherein heart-wrenching situations are followed by either romantically exciting resolutions or a bittersweet finale, all with the overlapping promise of the familiar comfort food and an underlying theme of real love.
Knowing full well the culture of the Philippines and their love of bittersweet and sometimes cliché storylines (a.k.a. the Hugot-theme), Jollibee’s series of shorts strategically tugged at the heartstrings of Filipinos during the holiday of romance by consistently using the themes of challenges, rejections, and heart-breaks, albeit in a family setting or that of a relationship. Jollibee Studios (yes, that’s their YouTube channel) have since become a nationwide phenomena. Pooling in a collective 167 million hits on Facebook and over 63 million views on YouTube, Jollibee’s success won them a couple of awards including the Gold and the Brand of the Year Award at the APAC Effie Awards, and had them releasing more short films on every Valentine’s Day since.
Although emotional advertising can pull at one’s heartstrings and give viewers a genuine connection to the brand, its missteps can create a truly opposite reaction. In 2016, Contently published an article entitled “The Dangerous Power of Emotional Advertising”, and according to its author Carly Miller, “Negative emotions can be a powerful tool to elevate a brand’s message, as long as they’re not delivered too bluntly.” Unfortunately, some brands weren’t able to find that fine line between their emotional ad and their bittersweet message resulting in poorly executed advertising that has caused not only an insulted audience and poor feedback by viewers, but also a negative reaction towards the brand.
During the Superbowl, which is well-known for its comedic and feel-good ads during the commercial breaks, Nationwide, an insurance company, attempted to drop the mood with a short ad that comprised of an awkward tagline with a more than awkward twist. The ad portrayed a young boy describing monumental events in his life. The vibe is innocent and even inspiring until the twist wherein the boy is actually dead due to an easily preventable accident.
The mood-killing commercial came in between feel-good ads accenting the awkwardness of the message, and audiences watching the ad at home took to social media roasting the insurance company's advertising team and their thought process. Strategically manipulating your consumers feelings and stimulating their emotional triggers can influence how they make decisions, so if the ad is designed to incite anger, sadness, or joy, it's best to reach a resolution and achieve catharsis with them rather than leave them wallowing with their emotions all over the place.
Finally, the last example is one not to be forgotten. In 2019, Volkswagen embraced the future of zero-emission vehicles with their campaign entitled “The Last Mile”, when they finally decided to retire the iconic Volkswagen Beetle that’s been rolling on for seven decades. Along with the unfortunate news, they released a nostalgic animated short featuring an appropriate and hopeful rendition of The Beatles’ classic tune, “Let it Be.”
The beautifully animated 90-second short tells the tale of the classic Volkswagen Beetle finding its way into the life of a family as they go through the decades, even including cameos of iconic figures such as Andy Warhol, whose work incorporated the Beetle, and Kevin Bacon who drove a Beetle in the film Footloose. The ad ends with a crowd waving goodbye to the car as it takes flight as a bug and the words “Where one road ends, another begins”, closing the chapter and embracing the future of the auto industry.
Advertising is a good way to tell the public how your brand can give a sense of joy or wonder to their lives, enriching it with the promise of good memories for them and their families. So by properly elevating the ad with emotionally connective storytelling, and not shying away from sad themes, your brand can provoke Aristotle’s catharsis, creating impact and long lasting, sharable recognition. Life, after all, is not only made of a bed of roses. Branded content probably should not too.