Insights:Experiential Branding – Building Emotional Connections

Maybe you’ve been doing business for years or perhaps now you have a new product or service that is spot on for your business goals; but now what? How do you build lifelong loyal customers? What can you do to make your brand memorable, especially since you have quite a few competitors to stand out from? Great questions. You should create experiential branding.

Experiential branding builds emotional connections with your brand, it’s personality and feeling. Is your brand warm? Is it safe? Is it exciting? A great place to start is by knowing yourself. Once you have established who you are and what your identity is, you can begin to connect with your consumer in the place of their emotional need.

This is important, because consumers are looking for emotional connections in a world that is increasingly becoming emotionally disconnected. Consumers are willing to connect with, and pay for, products from brands that make the effort to emotionally connect. According to a blog written by Heather Murphy of Forbes, titled “Create Loyal Customers For Life: Making Limbic Connections with Experiential Branding”, Forbes, May 2, 2017; the scientific rationale behind what happens is found within the limbic system of the human body. Although this blog was written six years ago, its observations withstand the test of time.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary: the limbic system is a system of nerves and other structures in the brain that control many of our emotions. What’s interesting about the limbic system is it is in the “mammal thinking” part of the brain that is responsible for the emotions, memories and habits that we think about. It’s constantly asking; “Do I belong here?”; you want your consumers to respond with, “Yes, I do belong here.” Essentially, you want to invite your consumers to become loyal brand family members, to feel safe with your brand and experience the consistency that your brand provides.

A great example of this is the South Dakota Farmers Union (SDFU) Safety Trailer. Insight planned, designed and executed this experience design trailer for SDFU. One of the most important aspects of the SDFU brand identity is safety, so we converted a 24 ft. gooseneck trailer into a mobile safety experience complete with an interactive farm scene, grain bin safety experience and loads of facts about how to make farming safer; the participant leaves with numerous ways of how to be safe while working on their farms.

The payoff is huge, not only are farm families going to be safer, lives could be saved and how can you put a dollar value on that? Not only does this provide a safe, emotional connection, it provides a safe lifeline connection. The trailer is just one of the great ways we’ve helped SD Farmers Union spread awareness of its mission among South Dakotan communities. To see more of Insight’s SDFU work, and other experiential works, check out our website.