Emotional Branding: Playing with the Senses

that underline, support and reflect the brand’s unique DNA. Therefore a variety of images representing a series of attitudes and styles, all easily representing the brand have to be compiled and assessed with the aim to create a brand portrait. The point is to uncover the images and cues that characterize the brand away from the product. “The brand’s unique personality comes alive as the visuals give insight into the look, attitude, mood, spirit, and usage of the brand.”72 In addition adjectives and other defining words that support the visual voice of the brand and the brand’s core values are recorded e.g. in image games or brainstorming where the participants name different terms that they connect with the showed images and that speak to the substance of the brand. The illustration shows possible associations of some ‘defining words’: [...]

Starting point of the definition process and a branding concept is the analysis of the brand’s inherent values to establish a strong emotional platform grounded in the real-life experience of the target audience. That means the aim of this process is to “pinpoint the core attributes of a brand and build up an imagery around these attributes.”71 During this process it is fundamental to find out how possible consumers feel about a brand looking at what corporations think their brand is and if there are similarities and where are the differences that probably will exist in order to find out where the brand hits the consumer senses the most. In this context it is significant to think about the future visual counterpart of the planned brand image, the dimensionalization of the consumer-personality compared with the way the emotional connection can be reached and the definition of the key attributes that describe the brand through compact descriptive images and adjectives [...]

Another brand that used this communication tool is Saturn cars in the USA. They had technical problems with one type of car, mainly bought by women. But to create an experience in combination with the recall activities, they invited all users of this car type to come to the different authorized repairers. There they organized a barbecue to shorten the time of waiting while the car was repaired and gave them so the possibility to exchange experience. The result was that the car became a kind of mythos, because consumer felt in love with their car and the connected experiences. On the other hand Saturn got more personal information about their consumers, which helped them to understand the wishes, and needs of their clientele and increased the consumer loyalty. So to make the brand an experience creates certain memories and bonds between a brand and the consumers. Companies that are successful in creating pleasant brand experiences will increase the positive word-ofmouth effect. [...]