McDonald’s was one of the first advertisers to really understand this.
Decades ago, when their competitors were boasting about the size of their burgers or the thickness of their shakes, McDonald’s was busy crafting emotional portraits of families enjoying moments of togetherness around a fast-food lunch.
Consumers could easily accept or reject the rational claims being made by competitors, but the poignant appeals pioneered by McDonald’s changed the playing field. Instead of a binary “true or false” equation, these emotional slices of life were hard to argue against and easy to embrace.
Sure, the commercials I’ve just described seem quaint today, and the tactics of emotional branding have evolved over time as consumers have become more sophisticated, but the underlying principle remains true.
By the time I had a son of my own, I almost felt it was my duty to take him to McDonald’s. That’s what dads and sons are supposed to do after a little league game.
Crazy, isn’t it? But that’s how we’re made. We’re emotional beings, and we respond to emotional appeals.
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Photo by MSDesigns.
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