An emotive brand can’t simply advertise its way into being meaningful. It has to exude meaning at every opportunity. All too often brands seeking to appear more meaningful rely purely on tactical communications like an ad campaign. We are as likely as anyone to say, “that’s nice” after viewing an emotional commercial or a touching video on a company website. There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? Well, there can be.

Sadly, these brands often come off as being superficial. They wear their feelings on their sleeves. And they use advertising to claim to be something meaningful. However, they end up creating emotional dissonance by not being truly meaningful in everything they do. So the warm and fuzzy sensations these brands provoke quickly disappear when the brands act in a way that is inconsistent with their claimed emotional premise.

We all know the drill: the product doesn’t work the way the brand promises; employees of the brand are insensitive to customers; the wishfully “meaningful” brand treat its partners, supplier, and distributors “meanly”. Hence, the problem.

Far better, in our view, is to create a brand culture that exudes meaning, that evokes emotions rather than simply displays feelings, and that transforms every point of contact between the brand and the people vital to its success into a subtle and powerful meaning generator.

Our advice:

Don’t emote, evoke.

Don’t tease, connect meaningfully.

Don’t claim you’re worthy, make it evident.

For more information on the subject of helping your brand matter more, read our white paper Transforming Your Brand Into an Emotive Brand.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.