It’s not too hard to spot an emotional brand. It uses emotions tactically to either make people laugh or to gently tug at their heartstrings. These brands typically only do this through their advertising.

Emotive brands are far more rare. These are brands that forge meaningful – and valuable – emotional connections through everything they do.

So while someone may happily buy a brand based on its emotional advertising, they are likely to be left bemused when dealing with the emotional brand’s crass customer service people.

The resulting brand dissonance will, no doubt, prompt them to turn to alternative brands. On the other hand, buyers of emotive brands have a seamless emotional experience in every aspect of the customer experience.

This is because the use of emotion is a highly considered brand strategy for emotive brands.

Emotive brands engage their entire organizations so that every brand moment evokes a similar set of feelings – feelings that bond the customer (and the employees) to the brand.

The resulting brand harmony will keep them coming back to the brand (and telling others all about it).

From a brand management point of view, this is the difference between:

1. Cynically using people’s emotions, and credibly and authentically bonding with them through shared values, attitudes, and behavior
2. Giving people a 30 second emotional kick, and getting people to care more for you forever
3. Doing predictable stuff, and intelligently opposing the expected
4. Being viewed cynically, and being embraced with respect
5. Focusing on short-term opportunism, and embracing long-term value creation

Ultimately, it’s the difference between settling for meaningless marketing and striving for meaningful connections.

It’s a choice every brand can make.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco branding agency.