Imagine choosing between two brands of the same product – one has the fanciest features, while the other simply feels right. Increasingly, consumers are making decisions based on emotional connections and experiences rather than on specs and price alone. In fact, research shows that as much as 70% of consumer decisions are driven by emotional factors, with only 30% based on pure reason. In other words, how a brand makes people feel now often outweighs what a brand actually does. From cars to coffee, buyers are drawn to brands that resonate with their values, aspirations and identity. This shift in consumer decision-making means that effective brand positioning must appeal to the heart, not just the head. Marketers are realising that to stand out and inspire loyalty, feelings matter more than features in the long run.

Today’s consumers seek brands that promise experiences or ideals – comfort, adventure, belonging, empowerment – rather than just functional benefits. This emotional motivation is evident across industries. Whether it’s a travel service that makes you feel at home anywhere or a sportswear brand that instills confidence and inspiration, emotional connections drive deeper engagement. Below, we’ll explore how leveraging emotive attributes in brand positioning provides a strategic advantage, how to identify the right feelings to focus on, and how to optimise your content for maximum visibility in both traditional and AI-driven search. The goal is to arm marketing leaders with insights to build brands that win hearts and search rankings. Let’s dive into why leading with emotion is a smart strategy and how to do it in a measurable, SEO-friendly way.

The Strategic Advantage of Emotional Attributes

Great brands have always understood that emotions are powerful motivators. Emotive attributes – the feelings and intangible qualities a brand evokes – create psychological bonds with consumers that pure product features can’t match. While functional benefits (like quality, price, convenience) are important, they’re rarely enough to secure long-term loyalty. Emotional resonance goes deeper. Studies confirm that people prefer brands that align with their feelings, and these emotional connections heavily influence decisions. When a brand appeals to positive emotions such as happiness, trust, or nostalgia, it builds a protective moat of loyalty that can even overcome logical trade-offs like a higher price. In other words, a customer emotionally bonded to a brand is less likely to be swayed by a cheaper or flashier competitor – their choice is guided by heart as much as mind.

Importantly, emotional attributes often have a bigger impact on brand loyalty and value than any technical spec sheet. Fully emotionally connected customers are proven to be far more valuable to businesses than merely satisfied ones. For instance, a Harvard Business Review study found that customers who feel a strong emotional connection to a brand are 52% more valuable, on average, than those who are just “highly satisfied”. They buy more frequently, are less price-sensitive, and enthusiastically recommend the brand to others. Likewise, Gallup’s research in behavioural economics reveals that about 70% of the variance in customer engagement can be attributed to emotional factors, far eclipsing the influence of purely rational factors. In practice, this means a brand that wins hearts can enjoy stronger loyalty, advocacy and lifetime value than one that only competes on features. Emotionally engaged customers not only stick around longer, they also become brand advocates – sharing their passion with friends and on social media – effectively providing free word-of-mouth marketing.

Why do emotional attributes deliver such strategic advantage? Psychologically, human decision-making is wired for emotion. Neuromarketing studies have shown that the parts of the brain associated with feelings and personal identity light up when consumers evaluate brands. People tend to remember how a brand makes them feel more than the specifics of what it offers. A banking service that makes customers feel secure and cared for, for example, will foster trust and repeat usage beyond what a low interest rate alone can achieve. Similarly, a smartphone brand that inspires creativity and belonging to a “community” can keep users loyal even if a rival has a slightly better camera. Emotional resonance also tends to be more differentiating – competitors can easily copy your features, but they can’t copy the authentic story and emotional relationship you build with your audience. In summary, emotional brand positioning isn’t about fuzzy feelings for their own sake; it’s a hard-headed strategy to cultivate loyalty, drive consumer decision-making, and create competitive insulation that purely functional brands struggle to match.

Identifying Emotive Attributes That Matter Most

Not all emotions are equally relevant for every brand. The key is aligning your brand’s emotional attributes with the feelings that truly drive your target customers’ purchase decisions. In other words, you must uncover which specific emotions or values are most influential in your customers’ choices – those become the foundation of your brand positioning. If a company chooses an emotional angle that doesn’t resonate with what its audience cares about, the message will fall flat (or worse, seem contrived). Effective emotional marketing starts with insight: understanding which feelings motivate your customers to choose your product or category.

So, how do you identify the emotive attributes that matter most to your audience? It begins with stepping into your customers’ shoes and mapping out their priorities. Look at the criteria they use – consciously or subconsciously – when deciding what to buy, and decode the emotional drivers behind those criteria. Often, practical purchase criteria have emotions lurking beneath. For example, a consumer shopping for a family car might list safety, reliability, and fuel efficiency as top criteria (rational factors), but underlying those is a powerful emotional priority: the peace of mind and love for family that safety represents. Thus, “peace of mind” and feeling cared for are the real emotive attributes to emphasise for an automotive brand targeting parents. A travel service’s customers might seek affordable accommodations and good location, but emotionally they are motivated by a sense of belonging and adventure – the feeling of being “at home” even when abroad. By aligning the brand with that feeling (as Airbnb did with its Belong Anywhere mantra), you speak to what truly matters in the customer’s heart.

Uncovering these emotional drivers requires research and empathy. Start by directly engaging with customers: surveys, interviews, and focus groups can surface the language people use about how a product makes them feel. Ask open-ended questions: How does using this product make you feel? What do you hope to experience when you use it? Listen for recurring themes – do they mention feeling confident, secure, hip, responsible, indulgent, etc.? Those recurring emotional words are clues to what resonates. Qualitative techniques like the “why ladder” are useful: keep asking why a feature is important until you hit an emotional root. For instance, “Why is organic sourcing important to you?” → “Because it’s healthier” → “Why is that important?” → “Because I feel I’m being a good parent keeping my family healthy.” Here the emotional attribute is being a caring, responsible parent, which a food brand could highlight. It’s also valuable to analyse existing data: online reviews and social media sentiment often reveal emotional triggers unprompted. Pay attention to the emotions expressed in customer reviews – e.g. “This app makes me feel in control of my finances” or “This coffee blend brightens my morning”. Modern sentiment analysis tools can aggregate these, helping identify which emotional tones (joy, trust, nostalgia, excitement, etc.) are most associated with your brand or category.

Crucially, ensure the emotions you decide to champion align with your consumers’ deep motivations and values. Customers become emotionally connected to a brand when it aligns with their motivations and helps them fulfill deep, often unconscious, desires. These might include the desire to feel secure, to stand out from the crowd, to have confidence in the future, or to enjoy a sense of well-being. Which of these motivators sync up with your offering? If you sell outdoor gear, perhaps it’s the yearning for freedom and adventure. If you’re a cosmetics brand, maybe it’s about self-expression and confidence. Make sure to validate that the emotional attribute you choose truly matters to consumer decision-making in your category. You can do this by testing messages (does an ad emphasising that emotion perform better?) or simply by observing behaviour (brands aligned with a key motivator tend to lead in market share). In short: find the feelings that actually drive your customers, and focus your brand around those. That alignment is the sweet spot where emotive branding yields real results.

Leveraging Brand Research to Ensure Relevance

Identifying the right emotional attributes is only the first step – next you need solid research to confirm and refine those insights, and to keep your finger on the pulse of changing consumer feelings. Brand research is your best friend in ensuring your emotional positioning stays relevant and resonant over time. This includes a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches, from advanced surveys to social media analytics. By leveraging research techniques like conjoint analysis, sentiment analysis, brand tracking studies and more, marketers can measure which emotions truly move the needle and adapt their strategy as consumer attitudes evolve.

One powerful tool is conjoint analysis, traditionally used to gauge preference for product features, which can be adapted to test emotional appeals. In a conjoint exercise, you might present consumers with different brand scenarios or messages – some highlighting functional benefits, others highlighting emotional benefits – to see which combination drives higher preference. For example, a telecom company could test a message about “fast download speeds” against “connecting you with what (or who) you love most.” If the emotionally framed option significantly boosts purchase intent, that’s evidence the emotional attribute (love/connection) is a strong driver. Conjoint analysis essentially quantifies how much value consumers place on various attributes (including intangibles like peace of mind or status). This helps take the guesswork out of emotional marketing by grounding it in data. If done correctly, you can derive a numerical importance score for an emotional attribute in decision-making – invaluable for making the case that, say, trustworthiness contributes more to brand choice than a 10% price difference.

Another crucial research approach is brand sentiment analysis. With so much consumer conversation happening online, sentiment analysis uses AI to scan reviews, social posts, forums, etc. and determine the prevailing emotions associated with your brand. It’s essentially a real-time barometer of how people feel about you. Tracking sentiment (positive/negative tone, and specific emotions mentioned) can illuminate whether your brand is seen as friendly, exciting, caring, edgy, and so on. It also flags disconnects – for instance, if your brand aspires to be seen as “comforting” but online chatter is full of frustration, you know there’s work to do. Modern sentiment tools can even break down emotion by topic, showing which parts of the experience spark joy vs anger. Regularly monitoring brand sentiment lets you measure if your emotional positioning is hitting home. As one 2025 marketing guide notes, brand sentiment analysis provides a “clear view of how consumers perceive your brand, offering actionable insights for strategic planning”. In practice, this could mean observing that mentions of happiness and relief in association with your app have doubled since you launched an emotionally-charged campaign – a good sign the campaign is working.

Brand tracking surveys are another staple for measuring emotional connection over time. These are periodic surveys (quarterly, annually, etc.) that assess key brand metrics – not just awareness and satisfaction, but also emotional metrics like brand personality traits and attachment. Many companies include an Emotional Connection Score (ECS) or similar in their tracking. The ECS essentially measures the share of customers who feel fully connected to the brand on an emotional level. This can be derived through composite metrics: for example, combining indicators like customer trust, perceived shared values, and likelihood to recommend. A gap between your brand’s ECS and that of a competitor (or the category average) can reveal opportunities. If your ECS is low, it signals you’re not yet tapping into the emotional motivators that drive loyalty, and you may need to adjust course. Brand trackers often use questions that indirectly measure emotions – e.g. asking respondents to agree or disagree that “Brand X is the kind of company that really understands me”, or “Using Brand Y makes me feel stylish and cutting-edge.” By quantifying these perceptions, you can track if your emotional positioning efforts (say, a new tagline or ad campaign) are shifting the needle on the feelings consumers associate with you.

Beyond surveys and analytics, don’t forget qualitative research for depth and context. In-depth interviews, ethnographic studies, or even analysing customer service call logs can surface rich emotional insights. For instance, interviewing a handful of your most loyal customers about why they chose and stick with your brand can uncover common emotional themes (maybe they all mention a sense of community your brand fosters). Likewise, social listening on forums or conducting focus groups can reveal emerging emotional needs that a survey might miss. Perhaps in a focus group you learn that customers aspire to a lifestyle that your brand can help symbolise – that aspiration could become a new emotive attribute to build on.

Finally, keep research iterative and ongoing. Consumer priorities and cultural trends shift, sometimes quickly. The emotive sweet spot today might not be the same in a year. World events, economic changes, or new competitors can all influence what emotions consumers care about. (For example, during a global pandemic, feelings around safety and trust became paramount in many industries; in economic boom times, excitement and indulgence might come to the fore.) By maintaining an ongoing loop of research – continuously tracking sentiment, updating surveys, and testing new ideas – your team can stay agile. Regular brand tracking will show if your emotional attributes are maintaining relevance or if you need to pivot. In short, data-driven brand research ensures your emotive positioning stays aligned with what consumers value most, allowing you to adapt messaging or strategy before you fall behind. Marrying the art of emotional branding with the science of research gives you the best chance of hitting the right notes with your audience consistently.

Brands Winning with Emotion

Abstract concepts become much clearer when we see them in action. Numerous brands – big and small – have reaped rewards by smartly leveraging emotive attributes that sync with their customers’ priorities. Let’s look at a few innovative examples of brands effectively positioning around emotion, and what we can learn from their success (and missteps):

• Subaru (Automotive – Love & Belonging): A decade ago, Subaru was a niche carmaker known mainly for practical, all-wheel-drive cars. Sales were flat. The company discovered through research that while non-owners had little awareness of Subaru, existing owners kept raving about one thing: how much they “love” their Subarus. This insight sparked a repositioning around the emotive attribute of love – focusing not on horsepower or cargo space, but on the love and connection between drivers, their cars, and their families. The famous “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru” campaign launched, featuring heart-tugging stories (family road trips, a dad handing down his beloved old Subaru to his son, etc.). The results were astounding. Within a few years, Subaru’s U.S. sales tripled, and the brand shed its niche status. Among people who saw the “Love” ads, brand awareness jumped by 27 points, familiarity tripled, and the percentage of consumers with an “excellent” opinion of Subaru shot up 400%. Subaru essentially tapped into consumers’ emotional priority for safety, family and belonging – the warm feeling of love and care – which resonated far more than selling on technical merits. This emotional alignment translated into record-breaking loyalty and market share. Subaru’s success showcases how choosing the right emotive focus (love/family) in a category where people deeply value safety and caring for loved ones can transform a brand’s fortunes.
• Airbnb (Hospitality – Belonging & Community): Airbnb isn’t just selling accommodation; from the start, it sold the idea of belonging anywhere. In 2014, the company explicitly rebranded around the core emotional insight that travellers crave a sense of connection and belonging when they explore the world. Their tagline “Belong Anywhere” and the Bélo symbol (which represents people, places, love) reinforced that Airbnb is about feeling at home and part of a community wherever you go. This struck a chord with their target audience of adventure-seeking, authenticity-loving travellers for whom sterile hotels felt isolating. By leveraging the emotive attribute of belonging, Airbnb differentiated itself from hotel chains and built enormous brand affinity. Hosts and guests frequently speak of the unique sense of connection Airbnb facilitates – essentially validating that the brand’s emotional promise matches a real consumer desire. Airbnb’s growth to a global phenomenon was propelled not by boasting the number of listings or lowest prices, but by marketing the emotional experience of “live like a local” and belonging anywhere on earth. It’s a textbook case of aligning brand positioning with an emotional priority (community and authenticity) in the travel decision process.
• Warby Parker (Retail – Generosity & Purpose): Warby Parker, an eyewear retailer, broke into a crowded market by infusing a strong emotional mission into its brand: compassion. From day one, Warby Parker ran a “Buy a Pair, Give a Pair” program – for each pair of glasses sold, they donate a pair to someone in need. This altruistic attribute of generosity and social good became core to their identity. For consumers (especially socially conscious millennials), the act of purchase suddenly carried a feel-good emotional reward: pride and satisfaction in helping others. Warby Parker’s storytelling emphasises this purpose, making customers feel they’re part of a larger community impact. The strategy clearly paid off – the brand grew rapidly through word-of-mouth and customer evangelism, far outpacing traditional eyewear retailers. Warby Parker shows that in categories where products can be similar, an emotional attribute like charity/giving back can strongly influence consumer choice for those who prioritise social responsibility. Aligning with customers’ values (in this case, the desire to do good) forged an emotional bond that translated into loyalty and advocacy. The lesson: when a brand’s emotive attribute taps into a priority close to customers’ hearts (be it sustainability, generosity, empowerment, etc.), it can galvanise a passionate fanbase beyond what functional benefits alone would achieve.

These examples illustrate how picking the right emotive attribute and integrating it throughout the brand can yield remarkable results. Subaru focused on love (appealing to family and safety emotions), Airbnb on belonging (community and adventure), Warby Parker on generosity (purpose and compassion). In each case, the emotional angle was directly relevant to consumer priorities in the category – it wasn’t emotion for emotion’s sake, but rather a genuine alignment with what the audience cares about most when choosing a car, a lodging, or glasses.

When Emotional Alignment Misses the Mark

Just as important as the success stories are the cautionary tales. Brands that neglect to align emotional messaging with consumer values – or execute it clumsily – can face backlash. A notorious example is Pepsi’s 2017 “protest” ad featuring Kendall Jenner. Pepsi tried to tap into the emotion of unity and social justice by depicting a feel-good protest where sharing a Pepsi magically brings everyone together. The problem was a gross misalignment with the gravity of the issues it referenced. Viewers saw it as an inauthentic, tone-deaf attempt to capitalise on serious social movements. The ad trivialised real protests and came off as insensitive rather than inspiring. The consumer response was swift and negative – outrage on social media, accusations of co-opting activism, and a damaged brand image for Pepsi. Pepsi had aimed for an emotional connection but missed the mark badly because the chosen “emotion” (togetherness via protest) was not credible coming from a soda brand and not in tune with its audience’s expectations. The lesson? Emotional marketing can backfire when it’s perceived as fake or misaligned with brand identity and audience values. Any emotive attribute you leverage must be authentic to your brand and genuinely meaningful to your consumers, or else it rings hollow.

Other pitfalls include using emotions inappropriately for the context (e.g. a disturbingly sad ad during a jovial Super Bowl slot, which viewers found jarring), or being too generic with emotional appeals (ads that try to be “uplifting” but say nothing unique, resulting in no impact). The common thread in emotional marketing failures is lack of authenticity or relevance. As we’ve seen, the winning approach is to choose your emotional focus based on real consumer insights, and ensure every emotional claim or story is backed by truth in the product or brand experience. Do that, and you set the stage for customers to bond deeply with your brand – do it carelessly, and consumers will see right through it.

Turning Emotion into Actionable Strategy

Leveraging emotive attributes in brand positioning offers more than just an advantage, it transforms how consumers perceive and interact with your brand. Brands that succeed in aligning their positioning with the emotional priorities of their consumers build deeper, enduring relationships that translate directly into increased loyalty and market strength.

Now is the moment to assess your brand's emotional resonance. Identify the emotions that genuinely motivate your customers, align your strategies accordingly, and continually refine your approach based on consumer feedback and research insights. Start today by scheduling an internal review of your current brand positioning. Engage your teams, listen closely to your customers, and harness the power of emotion to elevate your brand’s impact.

Are you ready to unlock your brand’s emotional potential? Connect with our team today to explore how emotion-led branding can drive your business forward.