Empathy-Driven Marketing: Secrets From Nike, Spotify And Disney

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Hi there - Jen here :)

One of the hills I’ll die on as a marketer is that empathy is more important than creativity.

Tons of brands make super creative products, customer experiences, and ads that nobody cares about.

They don't move the needle because they're not built to connect.

🧠 Today we’re diving into how psychological principles like Emotional Resonance and the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap can help create empathetic marketing (that moves the needle on sales, too).

Today you’ll learn:

• What is empathy in marketing and why is it important?

• How brands like Spotify and Disney use empathy to create more effective, memory-making marketing

• How to harness the power of empathy so you can create 2x more effective marketing (and your sales can 2x, too)

👉 But before we get started, THIS FRIDAY I’m welcoming Psychology-Driven Copywriting expert Sue Moore to join me in our October Mastermind session.

In this Choice Hacking Mastermind, you’ll learn:

• How to quickly identify the signs that your messaging lacks emotional depth, so you can keep people from ignoring you and buying from your competitors

• How to inject more emotion into your copy, so buyers feel you can read their minds (and they can't help but buy)

• A simple approach to figure out what your ideal buyers need to hear, so your messages can resonate and drive more engagement and sales

👉 Time’s running out so get yours today

PS: Everyone who registers will get sent a recording of the event, so if you can’t make the day and time you’ll still get access.

What is empathy in marketing & why is it important?

Empathy is when you demonstrate a shared understanding of the emotions, challenges, pain points, experiences, and needs of your buyers.

It’s speaking their language, reflecting their lived experience, and seeing the world from their viewpoint.

When marketing is empathetic, it creates messages that are more memorable, persuasive, and attention-grabbing.

How brands like Spotify and Disney use empathy to create more effective marketing (that drives more sales)

1. Spotify reflects a collective sense of “weird” in their marketing

In 2016…

…an objectively weird year that saw the rise of Donald Trump, the deaths of much-loved celebs (like Alan Rickman, Muhammad Ali, George Michael, and David Bowie), Brexit, and the Chicago Cubs winning their first World Series in 108 years…

Spotify launched the “Thanks 2016, It’s Been Weird” campaign.

They used data from their own users to spot weird behavioral tidbits and share them, reflecting everyone’s feeling that things that just felt off that year:

2. Disney designs with empathy using the “Hot-Cold Empathy Gap”

The idea for Disneyland came from a visit to Los Angeles’ Griffith Park that Walt Disney made with his daughters.

He was frustrated because while his kids were having fun on a merry-go-round, he had to sit alone on a bench.

At the time, park rides were only for kids, and there was nothing for adults to do but wait.

That experience gave Walt Disney the idea for a theme park where families, not just kids, could have fun.

At the start, it was easy for Walt to put himself in the mind of the customer, because the customer was Walt Disney himself - a father sitting alone on a park bench eating popcorn instead of having fun with his kids.

But once he started building Disneyland, Walt stopped being the customer.

He knew that it would become harder to understand what people wanted as the park grew and Walt became an administrator, not just a father sitting on a park bench.

Disney also knew that if his designer only created rides and park features they liked, the designers wouldn’t be focused on giving guests what they needed.

One reason is a psychological principle called the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap.

This principle says that we have a hard time predicting how we will behave in the future because our emotional state when predicting is different than it will be in the moment.

In other words, when we’re not currently feeling emotional (in a “cold” state) it’s hard to predict how we’ll react when we’re in a highly emotional state (a “hot” state).

For example, if I asked you how you’d respond if you saw someone get hit by a car you’d probably say something like, “I’d rush to their aid and call 9-1-1.”

And that’s an easy assumption to make, given that you’re not currently experiencing the rush of emotion that would happen after witnessing an upsetting accident. In the moment, you may act completely differently because you’re in a different emotional state.

But what does this have to do with Disneyland?

Well, when Walt Disney’s designers were asked to create experiences for Disneyland guests, they made a concentrated effort to overcome the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap.

How? Disney required his park designers to take their own families to Disneyland on a regular basis.

By living through the same emotional states guests experienced, the designers were able to overcome the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap and create a much more empathetic park experience.

In tech this is called Dogfooding, and it’s the cheapest and easiest way to do customer research that drives sales.

How to harness the power of empathy in your marketing

Want to have more empathetic marketing (that also drives more sales)? Here are a few places to start:

• Linguistic Mirroring: Make sure to use the language your customers use, not the language you or your industry uses. If you’re working in B2B (business-to-business) that might actually mean using common industry jargon. But your business is in a B2C environment (business-to-consumer) you’ll want to reflect the words and phrases your buyers use in everyday life.

• Emotional Resonance: This describes connecting with your customers on an emotional level through marketing and advertising. When your buyers feel more understood, or your marketing inspires them, they’re more likely to pay attention, purchase your products, and come back to buy again. Not all emotionally resonate ads need to be serious or tear-jerkers (funny ads are emotionally resonate, too), but here’s a great example from Nike that’s both.

• Hot-Cold Empathy Gap: Like Disney, make sure to put yourself in your buyers’ shoes as often as possible. It’s really hard to make good decisions for customers when it’s so easy to forget what it’s like to be one.

Until next time,
Jen