What role do emotions really play in branding?
In this episode of The Brilliant Brand Podcast, we’re diving into the power of emotional resonance—how it influences buyer behavior, drives loyalty, and can even override logic (just ask Coke and Pepsi).
You’ll learn:
🧠 The surprising science behind Coke’s dominance over Pepsi
🔥 Why emotional branding often beats logical selling
💡 4 practical ways to weave emotion into your branding
🎯 How to pick a core emotion that makes your brand unforgettable
Plus, I’ll share a quick story that reminded me why the work we do as business owners matters…sometimes in ways we don’t expect.
By the end of this episode, you’ll have simple tools to make your brand feel more memorable, magnetic, and emotionally compelling.
👇🏽 Tune in now:
🛠 Resources & Mentions:
- How Customers Think by Gerald Zaltman
- Episode 5 – Customer Interviews
- Episode 6 – Magnetic Brands
Thank you for listening to The Brilliant Brand Podcast! If you loved today’s episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Stay Brilliant. ⚡
🔥 Ready to Build Your Brand?
Schedule a discovery call: freshsparks.com/contact
📖 The Ultimate Guide to Building Your Brand (FREE)
Get it here: feshsparks.com/guide
💬 Let’s Connect:
- LinkedIn: Sonia Chopra
- Instagram: @freshsparks
- Learn more: freshsparks.com
“An effective way to build emotional resonance is to choose one core emotion your brand wants to evoke—and then thread that through every part of the experience.”
Episode 7 Transcription
Hey there Brilliant One. Welcome to episode number 7, thanks for sticking around if you’ve been listening since the beginning!
The other day, I played my podcast through Alexa in the kitchen after it was published – I like to do a final live review as if I was listening to it for the first time. And my son, happened to be eating breakfast at the table.
He seemed to be intently listening – which is rare for a tween, right? – and he said to me –
“Hey Mama, I could probably listen to your podcast in the future if I want to start my own business.”
I cannot even tell you how big the smile on my face got. I couldn’t even form words to respond. My MIND was BLOWN.
You know, you do these things every day for your work, and it’s tough to understand the impact it can have on your family—aside from helping provide for them.
What a moment it was to validate my purpose just by hearing that one thing before he zoomed off.
Realizing that something you create, your life’s work, can be of use to your children just takes it to a whole other level. It gives me chills. So I thought I’d share that little moment with you.
And if that doesn’t get you emotional – we’re going to talk all about emotions and branding in this episode!
You ready? Come with me.
Now – last time, in episode 6, we ran through some important traits of a magnetic brand – one of them being Emotional Resonance.
Yeah, that jargon-y term.
It’s a person being connected through human emotion to your brand.
And I asked you:
If you could pick ONE emotion that your brand could consistently evoke, what would that be?
And, how could you use that to resonate with people?
Did you think about that at all?
Remember how I mentioned that 95% of purchase decision-making occurs subconsciously and can be driven by emotion?
This actually comes from a book called How Customers Think, by Gerald Zaltman, a Harvard Business School professor. I will link it in the show notes for you.
Humans need both logic to make decisions, and emotion.
This happens all the time in our personal lives. We say things like “I’m going with my gut”, or “I have a gut feeling.”
Or we say we’re going to sleep on it, and see how we FEEL in the morning, to make a decision about something.
It’s not much different with business.
When you’re building a brand, your business or organization is defined by the perception and feelings that consumers have about the experience with it.
Marty Neumeier said it best-
A brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.
And feelings and emotions play a big part in the way that people perceive you and trust you.
Every interaction tells a story and sends a message that can resonate favorably, OR it can completely turn you off.
I have a great story that explains this very well, with some science behind it, of course.
In the last episode, we also talked about Coca-Cola being an example of emotional resonance.
Coke has a big competitor: Pepsi!
They’ve been involved in “soda wars” for decades now.
They both sell a very similar product, as you know – it’s a carbonated cola soft drink, it’s packaged in the SAME way… it’s consumed in the SAME way – however, their brands are very different.
Do you have a preference for either of these sodas? I’m not a big soda drinker, personally. But I would love to know where you’re at in terms of loyalty, so drop me a DM on LinkedIn or Instagram and raise your hand for Coke or Pepsi. Let me know.
Now, Coke has consistently aligned with happiness and joy – they’re actually an Innocent brand archetype (don’t worry, I’ll talk about archetypes in a future episode).
Pepsi, on the other hand, is more of a Jester brand archetype – they’re more fun about things…and in many of their advertising efforts they make jokes about the Coke brand. That’s, like, their entire focus of what they do for their ad campaigns, or at least in the past it was.
If you want to see some of the visuals each of these brands have used, go to freshsparks.com/7 and they’ll be posted with the show notes and transcription for this episode.
But to explain it to you now:
With Coke’s visuals and messaging, they focus on being happy, and a “life is good” type vibe. You’ll see a simple ad on the page I just mentioned, that is a close-up of a crisp, refreshing bottle of Coke in front of a sunshiny field with a red ladybug and the message: Open a Coke, open happiness.
Then, in contrast, you’ll see an example of Pepsi.
In their ad, they show a wintertime scene where over a foot of snow has fallen on the ground.
Two soda vending machines are side-by-side in this scene: Pepsi and Coke. The path in the snow has been completely cleared to the Pepsi machine by people’s footsteps, while the Coke machine is still covered up with snow and untouched. (You can barely even see the logo on it.)
There aren’t even any words on this ad. Just the idea that Pepsi is more in demand in this scene than Coke is.
That ad captures Pepsi’s playful personality.
But let me get in to the point of this story I want to tell you.
In 1975, wow – that’s 50 years ago at the time of this recording, that’s wild – in 1975, Pepsi conducted an experiment as one of their marketing campaigns. They did a taste test at local gathering places – so different grocery stores, malls, sports arenas, places like that.
People drank a couple of sips of soda from cups that were UNMARKED…and they were asked which one they liked better. So they didn’t know what they were drinking. Plain, unmarked cups.
And the CLEAR WINNER ended up being Pepsi. For taste. Pepsi was pretty happy about that.
The interesting thing is, that at the time, Coca-Cola was dominating sales in the market. Just destroying Pepsi.
So there was a research professor from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and he wondered “why is this happening, there’s gotta be something more to it….why are people picking Pepsi when given the taste test, but Coke is making more sales?”
He decided to do another test…to find out why consumers physiologically made that choice of Pepsi in the taste test.
So what he did, was use a machine that tests brain activity.
In the first phase of his test, people were hooked up to this machine where their brain was being scanned.
And then they drank the two sodas – Coke and Pepsi – from an UNMARKED cup. So again, they didn’t know what it was, they just drank it (while their brain was being scanned).
Again, Pepsi – was chosen as the favorite, by far. On blind taste.
So the researcher proved the original campaign correct.
The thing was, that the part of the brain that lit up was the one that makes up our reward system. Meaning, when that happens, a human thinks “I like this. It makes me happy.” That’s the reward system at work.
Now, here’s where it gets even more interesting.
In the second phase of the test, there was ONE thing altered.
This time, the people were told what they were drinking before they tasted it – this is Coke on the left, This is Pepsi on the right.
And everything changed when they knew what it was.
On the brain scanner, instead of the reward system area of the brain lighting up, the decision-making part of the brain lit up.
And COKE was the clear winner of that second test.
Here’s why:
When people drank that second round, they were not evaluating flavor. They were evaluating memories and experience with the Coke brand. They’re perception of it.
So their mind going into that taste test, when they knew what they would be drinking…their mind was already made up as soon as they knew the brand name.
So you can see how powerful that is, when emotion plays a part in decision-making – and needs to work together in your brain.
Now that we know people typically make decisions from an emotional place, you can understand how your brand can help connect you with them…by tapping into those emotions, and their experiences, even their memories.
How do we do this?
Well, that’s where the effort of your branding comes into play and is a critical piece of building and growing your business.
It’s not just what you look like, your logos or colors, it’s not just your product or service. And it’s not even just some clever or well-done advertising.
I want to give you 4 ways today, to inject emotion into your branding, regardless of whether you are selling something tasty or not. So get ready to take notes.
Let’s start with the basics. The first way to evoke emotion is:
1. Stick to a core emotion!
An effective way to build emotional resonance is to choose one core emotion your brand wants to evoke—and then thread that through every part of the experience.
This is not about trying to make people feel everything all at once. Too many feelings gets confusing and dilutes your message.
When you have too many conflicting feelings, you get overwhelmed right? I know I do!
Instead, you want to be emotionally consistent, so when people think of your brand, they feel something specific.
Just like how Coca-Cola evokes happiness and joy. Or Nike evokes motivation and empowerment.
That emotional thread should show up in your brand voice, your visuals, your customer experience, your storytelling—all the places.
So, how do you choose the right emotion?
I want you to ask yourself three things. First:
- How do I want people to feel after they interact with my brand in any context?
Second:
- What emotional shift do I want to create for my clients or customers? From this, to that. Point A to Point B. An emotional shift.
And finally:
- What emotion would be the opposite of what they feel before buying your product, or working with you, or joining your cause?
Think about how you can polarize when determining an emotion to associate with – that’s how a magnetic brand is born.
Your emotion becomes a brand cue— this is a gut feeling that people associate with you, even when they’re not fully conscious of it. And over time, that feeling is what builds loyalty.
It’s just like a relationship.
And remember:
People might forget what you said. But they won’t forget how your brand made them feel.
So, if you’ve chosen an emotion, what next?
2. Keep a consistent identity
Consistency is so key when you are building a strong brand. I can’t say it enough. When you present a consistent identity to your audience, it can give them a sense of trust…or ease…or comfort. Those are all backed by emotions! They are feelings which will fuel their decision-making.
When your identity is consistent, your company also starts to become recognizable and familiar.
And that’s, again, what people will make their decisions on. Just like in the Coke example – they had memories of that, they connected and subconsiously felt an emotion, and their mind was already made up.
A part of your identity is how you communicate, so the third way to bring emotion into your brand is to –
3. Use emotionally charged messaging
We want to speak our audience’s language with some kind of emotion. Too much logic doesn’t really describe how they feel about their situation.
We want to use words your audience actually uses when they describe their challenges and desires.
We want to mirror how they feel.
This is why customer interviews are so important. I talk ALL about this in episode number 5 – go check that out after this one.
Essentially, when you understand how people talk about their emotions, you can reflect that back to them. That’s how they know your brand gets them. They feel so seen. Like you’re reading their mind.
I was in the sauna the other day, thinking about how this is so good for longevity.
Let’s use that as a quick example. How can that be conveyed?
For a potential sauna customer – let’s say they are middle-aged or older.
You could simply say “Spending time daily in a sauna can extend your life.”
That sounds good! I want to live longer, and studies show that you can if you use a sauna daily.
But what if we said something like “Imagine watching your great-grandkids walk the stage at high school graduation.”
Now that’s a vision that taps right into the heart, doesn’t it?
Think about how to communicate deeper desires to your ideal customer or client with more emotionally charged messaging.
Let’s move on to the fourth way to inject emotion into your branding.
4. Tell tons of stories
Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for creating emotional connection in branding.
Why is that?
Stories activate more areas of the brain than facts or features ever could. They help people feel rather than just understand.
When you tell a story, it pulls your audience in and allows them to see themselves in that journey. That’s where the emotion kicks in.
And when your audience sees themselves in your brand’s stories, you build connection. Connection is what leads to conversion, loyalty, and advocacy.
Simple as that.
There are different types of stories you can share –
Of course, there’s the origin story of the brand.
This is where you help your people understand your Why. Or the moment of inspiration, frustration, or hope that sparked you to start this business.
And you don’t have to just focus on the success. You can share the doubts, or the wrong turns, and the moments that made it human. People do business with people.
Another type of story that really resonates is a customer transformation story. Show how someone went from struggle to success. Don’t you just love to see before-and-afters?
There are also plenty of behind-the-scenes, in-the-moment, relatable stories that you can also share to keep someone’s attention and connect with them. You can get more vulnerable in these types of stories.
And these don’t have to be long novels. Oftentimes, the smallest anecdotes can stir up emotion. Just like how I started this episode talking about my son.
Next time you write a post, or record a podcast, or draft a sales page, pause and ask yourself:
“What’s the story behind this message? Can I illustrate the point with a real moment?”
Let’s bring this one home, my Brilliant One.
Branding isn’t just a visual game—it’s an emotional one.
Today, you heard how brands like Coke win on more than just taste. They win on memory. On feeling. And you can do that too. By intentionally crafting an emotional experience through your brand.
So here’s what I want you to do:
Pick one of the four emotional strategies from today’s episode and try it this week.
Whether that’s clarifying the one emotion you want to evoke, making your brand identity more consistent, tweaking your messaging to reflect real language, or telling a story that hits home—choose one.
Because when your brand feels right, it becomes unforgettable.
And, if you’re feeling stuck on how to bring more emotion into your brand, reach out to me. DM me on LinkedIn or Instagram @FreshSparks and let me know what you’re working through.
That’s all I’ve got for this episode, thank you for tuning in.
As always, if you want a recap of this content, or any of the episodes – go to FreshSparks.com and click on the Podcast link in the navigation. We have a whole library of episodes there for you.
If you loved this episode, do me a favor and please leave a quick review or rating—it helps more headstrong but heart-centered business owners find the show.
I will talk to you next time, and stay brilliant.
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