How understanding human emotion can help impact your ROI
To influence consumers, you first need to understand how they think
While the best business decisions are based on logic, consumers rarely make decisions the same way. Most consumer choices, such as what to buy, who to trust or which brands to follow, are all driven by emotion.
Understanding those emotions and how they shape behaviour can transform how your marketing and your business performs. Because when brands connect with how people feel, they earn attention, loyalty and ultimately, better return on investment.
At Starbots Creative, we lead in bold creative underpinned by strategy, and understanding human emotion is where that strategy should begin.
The psychology behind purchases
According to research by Harvard Business School, 95% of purchase decisions are based on subconscious emotions rather than logic. Products appeal to emotional needs such as physiological, safety, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation, shaping consumer behaviour across all industries. For example, while a consumer might buy a watch to tell the time, they buy a luxury watch as a symbol of success, fulfilling their emotional self-esteem needs. Understanding these emotional needs helps brands speak to what really matters to their customers, turning communication into connection.
In many cases, multiple emotional needs influence a single decision. For example, choosing to pursue higher education can reflect a desire for belonging within a community and a drive for personal growth and self-actualisation. This emotional nuance highlights why deep consumer insight is essential for brands that want to connect in ways that are both meaningful and drive return on investment.
This principle extends beyond consumer markets into B2B contexts. According to dentsu, emotional motivations such as trust, ethical alignment and personal growth now outweigh professional decision drivers in the B2B buyer journey. Even in complex business environments, it’s still human emotion that has the greatest impact on return on investment.
How consumers choose brands
To influence consumers, you first need to understand how they think. Most of the time, consumers don’t process information in neat, logical steps. Instead, they rely on shortcuts, past experiences and emotions to make fast, intuitive choices. Even when consumers believe they are making logical and rational choices, their subconscious emotional drivers still guide many of their choices, which are then rationalised afterwards.
When consumers are comparing two brands, they might look at product features or prices, but what often sways the decision is how each brand makes them feel. They use their memory and emotional responses to make the decision quicker. Even if they can’t remember the details of either brand’s marketing, they remember the emotional impression it left. So, when a brand’s marketing sparks an emotional connection, that brand becomes the one that consumers instinctively reach for.
Evidence from 70 years of TV advertising
Think of a marketing campaign or advertisement. Chances are, you remember it because it sparked an emotional connection with you through humour, nostalgia, joy, sadness or anger.
To celebrate 70 years of TV advertising, ITV partnered with D&AD and System1 to find the top 70 most impactful TV ads from the past seven decades and see what made them so effective. The study revealed a powerful insight: the most effective ads are the ones that make audiences feel something. Emotion was found to be the strongest driver of effectiveness and the best predictor of both short-term and long-term brand growth.
Amongst the constant stream of information audiences face, ads that connect emotionally stand out and are more memorable. They consistently outperform those that are focused on information such as product features. This explains why Christmas ads are often some of the most memorable campaigns of the year. They don’t just sell a product; they tell a story and tap into audiences’ emotions, making them distinctive and hard to forget.
Storytelling that connects
Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools you can use to build an emotional connection with consumers. Stories are how humans make sense of the world, transforming information into feeling and helping consumers to understand why you exist and not just what you do.
When we helped Balance and Beam refine their brand, we focused on telling a story about confidence, growth and joy, not just gymnastics. This emotional brand narrative shaped everything from the brand’s tone of voice to its visual identity, creating a message that felt uplifting and real. The result was a brand that resonated emotionally with both parents and children, building an emotional connection that built customer engagement, loyalty and growth.
Want to explore storytelling further? Read our journal on storytelling and how it engages young audiences here.
Making brands feel human
Another way that brands can connect emotionally with consumers is by giving your brand human-like characteristics such as personality, emotions and behaviours. This can take the form of mascots or characters such as the Duolingo owl or a distinct tone of voice like Ryanair’s.
When a brand behaves more like a human, it feels safer, more familiar and easier to trust. For consumers, this strengthens positive feelings, decreases perceived risk and increases purchase intent.
This method is far from new. For decades, characters such as Michelin’s Michelin Man, Frosties’ Tony the Tiger or Compare the Market’s meerkats have created lasting emotional bonds with audiences by turning products into personalities that consumers can connect with.
We brought this strategy to life with the Love Stoke 100 campaign, which engaged the Stoke-on-Trent community through a character that felt authentic and local. Inspired by a beloved symbol of Staffordshire pride, the oatcake, Oatie embodied warmth and community spirit – giving the campaign a human voice and emotional touchpoint that audiences could instantly connect with.
The ROI of feeling
While emotional connection exists in the minds and hearts of your consumers, it translates into measurable impact for your business. Emotionally engaged customers:
- have a higher lifetime value
- are less price-sensitive
- are more likely to recommend your brand
- drive repeat business, advocacy and long-term growth
These aren’t soft benefits. They’re tangible outcomes that directly improve return on investment. The more emotionally aware your marketing becomes, the more it resonates and the stronger your commercial results will be.
Let’s make people feel something
If you want to increase ROI, start with emotion. By understanding how emotions influence decision making, you can create marketing that truly resonates with your audience.
At Starbots Creative, we help businesses to harness emotion by uncovering what their audiences truly care about and translating that into a marketing strategy that connects and converts.
Ready to see what strategic emotion-led marketing can do? Explore our marketing services here or contact us on 01782 618324 or info@starbots-creative.co.uk.
