Is marketing about emotion or is it about reason?
Yes.
If you assume you can sell with reason alone – getting all the facts straight, explaining everything, answering all questions – you are deluding yourself. That has never been true in marketing, not in 1850, not in 1923, not now.
It is less true than it used to be. It is more about emotion and less about facts than it used to be, and you can see that in typical advertising, whether consumer or business-to-business marketing.
It is just as big an error to think it is all and ONLY about emotion. And that is the error that lots of marketing is making these days.
An amazing percentage of current consumer advertising is virtually fact free.
This is so bad that, as I’ve mentioned delightedly more than once, I listened to Blimpie ads for years before I found out what they were selling. Recently they changed their advertising to tell people they sell sub sandwichies. I guess Subway and Quiznos have been kicking their butts despite their 40 year head start. Someone got the message.
Emotion and Reason, Reason and Emotion.
Let’s be smart Folks.
It’s not Rocket Surgery.