Emotional Experiences - the effect of emotional experience on logical decisions in the B2B world
The frontal cortex and the limbic system
When we say B2B marketing, we think bland, logical, direct, and lacks variety. Marketing for B2B businesses has mainly been concerned with preventing damage regarding regulations or laws or developing competition. The appeal usually refers to " something terrible that will happen if you don't move forward. Fear was the primary motivator for action.
Today, the situation has turned upside down, even businesses marketing to businesses understand the power of the positive emotional presentation of their product and they express their marketing messages in a positive, interesting, exciting and vocal way.
Understanding the profound differences required in fostering an emotional connection for B2B customers over B2C customers will be one of the key factors in determining which B2B brands will succeed in the 21st century. Emotion is a trump card when it comes to building brand experiences, but it is also important not to underestimate the role of cognition or "thinking", especially in the early stages of decision-making in B2B marketing. For example, if you are not aware of the brand, this matter will be reflected when making a decision on the matter.
To understand why our decisions are driven primarily by our emotions, we want to understand two well-connected areas of the brain: the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system.
cognitive functions
The frontal cortex sits at the front of our brain and deals with cognitive functions such as decision making, evaluation, logic, working memory, reason, Monitoring and problem solving. The limbic system is a complex group of brain structures located deep in our brain that supports a variety of functions including our sense of smell, motivation, intuition, drive, long-term memory and emotions. The fact that the limbic system deals with long-term memories and emotions is especially important when it comes to building brand experiences.
Why? When we make a decision, the front part of our brain (cortex) accesses our memory, and when we access our memory, our brain sends electrical impulses to the limbic system to recall the emotion associated with the brand. This is important because when we decide, it is not the memory of the brand that influences our choice, but the emotion we feel associated with this brand in our memory. This is a subtle but significant point.
Remember the last time you had a terrible service experience that made you feel uncomfortable. If the price was exorbitant - then did you feel as if you were ripped off or was your drink diluted with water? And did you feel that you were being worked on? In fact it is not the mixed drink or the bad service that affects whether you will return to this business again, or recommend it to friends; It is the emotion you experience and feel when you remember the experience. This is the main reason why the best brands in the world work hard to generate positive emotions associated with their brand.
