»  Phillip Atchison

Want to market your brand better? Then tell a story. That’s the top finding from an intensive three-year study that was recently released by the Advertising Research Foundation and American Association of Advertising Agencies, both based in New York.

The researchers set out to measure consumers’ emotional responses to TV advertising. What they discovered is that advertisements that tell a branding story work better than ads that focus on product positioning.

The report contends that in many ways, advertising is stuck in the past. The 20th century was dominated by a one-way transactional focus where ads were pushed at consumers. Today, consumers interact with ads to “co-create” meaning that is powered by emotion and rich narrative. 

Thirty-three ads across 12 categories, from brands like Budweiser, Campbell’s Soup and MasterCard, were analyzed by 14 leading emotion and physiological research firms. The research tools varied from testing heart rate and skin conductance of the ad viewer to brain diagnostics.

Please click here to read the whitepaper