Images can evoke memories and feelings

By Robert Wheatley

In the marketing communications business we’re called upon to help brands build relationships with current users and attract new ones. Clients retain agencies like ours to do this with skill and result. Hence it requires us to understand the difference between effective communication and anything that’s less than that.

What we’ve learned in the age of consumer control is that relevance precedes engagement. Push oriented messaging generally is brands talking about themselves, usually focused on features and benefits. So its important to understand how personal relevance can add power to brand communication. Thus, we work doubly hard to understand consumer interests and needs. It is within our awareness of consumer lifestyle passions that we find ways to build powerful communication.

An example of this thinking at work:

At its core, brand story telling involves some form and combination of words and pictures. These tools are at the center of the emotional relationships people acquire with the brands they care about. Here’s what I mean:

This image was taken during the holiday break looking out the living room window of our weekend home in southwest Michigan. It snowed 15 inches in a 24-hour period and the result was a pristine winter wonderland. Serene, beautiful isn’t it? The poor photography notwithstanding, there’s a visual story this image brings to life in varying degrees for people who attach their own associations and experiences with it.

It’s hard to convey exactly how I feel about this image because there’s so much meaning attached to it that transcends just the picture itself. For me our place in Michigan is a vital retreat that refreshes and revitalizes my attitude and spirit. It’s a transcendent environment that lifts me out of the pressures of agency life and in restorative manner, serves to remind me of what’s important about family, nature and quiet contemplation.

There are three levels of interaction we can associate with the brand communications we come into contact with:

Positive recognition – what we see and hear gains meaning and value based on our current experiences and connection to satisfactory outcomes.

Warm memories – an added layer of value when the communication triggers positive memories and associations that look backward through our life experiences and help us relive those important moments.

Personal relevance – when the communication is fully engaging our happiness, sense of pride, confidence and wellbeing.

We (consumers) are expectation creation machines much more than we are rational processors of facts, figures and analytical arguments. Powerful communication occurs when these associations are brought to life. So it stands to reason the more you know the human you’re trying to reach, the greater the opportunity to build stories in a manner that draws them in.

Too often we think engagement is laddering up the facts of our product features and benefits. Rather it is the associations and values, feelings we have in the presence of brands that gives the brand relationship its substance and longevity.

We are on a relentless quest to build emotional connections that mine the human capacity to shirt-list the brands we care about. Ironically, the ones we care the most about are the ones we feel good about — those that offer an expectation of happiness when we’re in their presence.

What do you think?