There’s no shortage of research that shows we’re fundamentally emotional creatures. The triggering of emotions sets in place the reactions that become our behaviour and, somewhere or other along the way, our conscious mind catches on and gets involved to a greater or lesser extent.

Why does the emotional reaction come first?

Well, imagine that something is flying towards your head at great speed. You could spend time consciously wondering what it is that’s about to hit you; provided you don’t mind whatever it is hitting you first.

Instead the brain has evolved to detect the threat in the many millions of sensory inputs it’s receiving each second, and react in a way that protects you.

In some cases these reactions are evolutionary; simply put those ancestors of ours who didn’t instinctively duck eventually died out. In other cases it may be a learned response; you soon learn that if you hear a shout of “fore” on a golf course you’d do well to duck and protect your head.

Our conscious post-rationalisations can suggest any number of apparently sensible reasons for not doing something; but there is sufficient evidence to show that, as often as not, these suggestions are what we tell ourselves to feel good and are often not connected with the real reason we’ve acted in a particular way.

So, if emotions are so important it makes sense to harness them in your marketing activity if you want to influence consumer behaviour.

Recent research shows that influencing emotions may not be all that hard.

Several years ago I read a study that found that saying a hard ‘k’ sound (like that at the end of the word ‘duck’) can make people happier.

Forming that ‘k’ sound activates many of the same facial muscles as used in smiling; somewhat strangely we don’t just smile because we’re happy, we can also feel happy because we’re smiling.

If you ever watch me playing golf or tennis you might hear the occasional “lucky ducky” as I put a bad shot behind me and put myself into a better mood.

But how does this work for you and your business, you might well be asking.

Admittedly getting your customers to say words that contain that ‘k’ sound is impractical. However, recent research has found that the same effect occurs when people read emotion verbs.

When someone reads “to laugh” or “to cry” the corresponding facial muscles are unconsciously activated.

What’s more, when the researchers subliminally exposed people to these terms (they flashed them on a screen during a cartoon) those who had seen smiling verbs rated it as being funnier than those who had seen frowning verbs.

Interestingly verbs have a lot more facial muscle impact than adjectives.

Proof that the effect comes from the reverse-engineering of facial muscles to the brain comes from another part of their experiment. When participants were made to hold a pen in their mouths – preventing them from activating their facial muscles as they otherwise would – they weren’t affected by the subliminal verbs.

So it’s worth considering what emotions you would like your customers to be experiencing as they encounter your products and tailoring your text accordingly.

Source: Association for Psychological Science (2009, August 15). Smile As You Read This: Language That Puts You In Touch With Your Bodily Feelings. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 28, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/08/090807103923.htm

Image courtesy: John Togasaki