The Use of Emotion as a Successful Marketing Strategy

The Use of Emotion as a Successful Marketing Strategy

In a 2013 advertisement for Pearl Izumi running shoes, a jogger, wearing a pair of sky blue Pearl Izumi shoes, appears to be stopped on a trail and performing CPR on his yellow Labrador retriever who is lying on the ground at his side. Above the jogger and his dead dog, there is a bright red box in the upper left hand corner that reads “CAN YOU HANDLE THE DOWNSIDES OF A MORE EFFICIENT RUN?” in bold white letters. Additionally, in the lower left hand corner of advertisement it reads “RUN LONGER.” in bold white letters again. Below that, the advertisement has a section of very small print that contains several important sentences, including “Project EMOTION isn’t for the faint of heart” and “Sure, not everyone will appreciate your increased efficiency, but ironically, not everyone was born to run like an animal.” The last line that reads “run like an animal” is printed in dark red letters, unlike the rest of the paragraph, which is printed in white. Throughout the entire advertisement, the company’s logo can be found a total of four times: once in black on the actual blue running shoe being worn by the jogger, once in bold white print in the lower right hand corner, once in fine white print in the bottom left hand corner as part of the Pear Izumi ‘Project Emotion’ website URL, and once more in bold white print directly below that. Controversial advertisements such as this often appeal to viewers by sparking or eliciting an emotional response that can potentially cause the company’s name and product to stick in our long lasting memory rather than just our transient attention and intrigue us to dig deeper into the company’s purposeful and unique marketing strategies.

Upon exami...

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...to healthy pets.

In conclusion, our emotions can be affected my many things including colors, past experiences, morals or values, life styles, and opinions. As discussed earlier, consumers tend to be an extremely opinionated group and their decisions for a wide variety of products are easily swayed due to the way the advertisement is portraying the use of the product. Practitioners have realized that understanding the dynamics of activities such as emotional experience can assist in developing marketing strategy (Mizerski & White, 1986). Ultimately, these Pearl Izumi running shoes are the key to freeing oneself from emotional constraints by allowing you to keep running faster and faster away from everything that might be holding you back as well as proving your loyalty and dedication to the company, the sport of running, and also to your beloved canine companions.