i second that emotion
I was reasonably happy to add my signature to brainjuicer and herdmeister's cheeky valentine's card to Millward Brown, following their apparent turnaround in recognising, officially, that emotion plays a more important role in long term branding, 'memory' and recall.
In short, how one 'feels' in response to a brand orchestrates what one 'thinks'.
MB point to the findings of a report by Peter Field entitled 'The Link Between Creativity and Effectiveness' (IPA, 2011)- a study of IPA Effectiveness, Effie and Cannes Lions Awards winners which reveals that ads don't need to persuade to be effective but they do need to trigger emotionally.
You can read about it here.
BUT...
I've seen Peter Field's presentation and while it's fairly entertaining and he's crunched the numbers I'm still slightly nonplussed due to the single-channel nature (ie film) of the examples quoted and researched.
As brands increasingly become things that we 'use', and the myriad of new ways by which a brand can be 'experienced' increases to place so much faith in a brand 'film' - a fairly blunt instrument.
Brand experience being the sum total of all interactions, there are many more emotional micro-touchpoints that can influence on how and what we feel.
So fair play to MB, but let's open up the debate to brand activities beyond one channel.
Thinking in straight lines will keep us going round in circles.
