Behavior change is hard work. Your target audiences need to overcome barriers that can be unique, frustrating, personal or functional. Recently, we’ve been working on separate efforts to increase visits to Minneapolis, and to get people to switch their primary bank. You can quickly brainstorm what some of those barriers might be.
CCF specializes in applying the science of behavior change to marketing, for both B2B and B2C clients. One of our tools is the Emotional Catalyst. An Emotional Catalyst is the “hot button” for an audience — a message that strikes at the core of their barriers. A campaign that leverages a strong Emotional Catalyst will have the audience saying, “They’re talking to ME.”
CCF’s process for uncovering an Emotional Catalyst is straightforward, replicable and has resulted in brand platforms and campaigns that have endured more than a decade:
- Identify brand truths. These can include services offered, mission, vision, values, brand tone/voice, accolades/awards and data from existing research that’s specific to your brand.
- Uncover consumer truths. These are the beliefs, mindsets, attitudes, values, opinions about the category, behavior or service being promoted. We’ll mine for insights via readily accessible sources: social media comments, blog posts, articles, online reviews, word of mouth, etc.. Ideally, qualitative primary audience research is the source of the insight that becomes your Emotional Catalyst.
- Summarize market truths, like industry or category trends and competitive analysis.
- Define the current belief based on consumer truths and findings. This should be simple and to-the-point.
- Frame a desired belief. What are the one or two things a consumer needs to believe to make your desired behavior change?
- Create the Emotional Catalyst: the most unique or salient intersection of the brand truths, market and consumer truths. The Emotional Catalyst falls in the middle of it all and becomes the key driver for behavior change.
The Emotional Catalyst becomes a north star for your messaging. It’s not just good for one campaign, it will work as long as there’s consistency among the brand, market and audience truths. Think about what behavior change you want to see for your brand.
