Tina Turner once asked, 'what's love got to go with it'? Whilst she wasn't talking about marketing Sam Dolan, founder of Jazz Hands, in her first column for MAD//Insight, argues that emotional advertising is the best way to secure long term love for your brand that will see it through tough, as well as the good times.

As brand marketers we spend A LOT of time looking for Unicorns. Ones that behave exactly the way we said they would in our brand plan – I beg you stop! We are selling to humans and they are as unpredictable as a cat coming across a cucumber.

But if we focus on love, it will conquer all.

If your objective is ‘I want people to love my brand’ – the way to do that is to ‘make them feel something’. My Dad says, and I’m 100% sure he stole it from someone famous, no one will remember what you said but they’ll remember how you made them feel. A brilliant mantra for brands chasing the love, so forget rational benefits and messaging in your advertising campaigns and get in touch with your emotions.

Your creative brief should be single minded, a measure of how you want consumers to feel – start by thinking about how they feel about you now. Don’t know? Go and talk to them – not in a focus group or online survey that’s when they tell you what they think you want to hear - go shopping with them, have a drink with them, follow them in their everyday lives – become their therapist if you have to!

Super important is to identify what emotion you’re aiming for – joy, empathy, sadness or surprise this should be the North Star that guides your journey to Love central. Let’s not forget actions, it’s a cliche but they do speak louder than words and done right will show a level of transparency and vulnerability to your brand which is endearing and critical for emotional advertising.

Marketing is about creating a bond between brand and customer - once you have that results will follow.

All sound a bit shmoozy? YES I hear you shout – well good, as marketers we have been so well drilled on process, templates and ROI we’ve forgotten the basic premise of what every brand wants – to be loved. Foreigner said it best with their 80’s hit ‘I wanna know what love is – I want you Emotional advertising is the best way to secure long term love for your brand with built in forgiveness credits for the tougher times.to show me’. So lets show them.

Cravendale milk used to do emotional advertising brilliantly. Milk is milk and it was quickly recognised that no one was paying 65p more per bottle just because its filtered and stays fresh longer. So friendly enemies were identified – teeth, bones and calcium were never talked about,  let own label milk talk health, Cravendale had a different role.

The genius in the early advertising was the recognition that although milk is one of the most frequently bought categories in the supermarket it’s also the most BORING category in the supermarket – a commodity in fact. So the brief was clear – entertain and make milk fun again. The emotional target was ‘surprise’ and for several years the campaigns grew volume sales in a declining market at a 50% higher cost than standard milk.

Some studies suggest that 95% of purchases – yes 95% - take place in a subconscious mind and brands who operate an ‘emotion only’ strategy regain loyalty levels of 82% - who wouldn’t want some of that!

How do you know you’ve succeeded? When someone says ‘I love that brand’ and they can’t tell you why.

Sam is the Owner and Founder of Jazz Hands – a one woman brand strategy agency powered by Northern grit