Leveraging A Consumer’s Empathy Factor? From Movies to Brands?
Turns out, both men and women have empathy (who knew?), but feel free to give in to it under different circumstances. Ian Austen writes in a New York Times article (reg. required) that men will more likely show empathy, i.e. cry, if a sad thing happens in a movie or book where the story is separated from reality, as in a fantasy situation. Women, on the other hand, have more empathy when the storyline is or seems true-to-life.
Austen cites new research, which will publish in the Journal of Consumer Research (co-authors of the research/paper are Jennifer Argo, Rui Zhu and Darren W. Dahl), that points to new possibilities for getting men and women more emotionally engaged with movies, in particular. One intriguing point of interest:
"Professor Argo speculates that men feel released from gender
constraints on showing emotion when dealing with fiction or fantasy
(which may also explain why men cry when Spock dies in ‘The Wrath of
Khan’)."
Interestingly, these sorts of gender constraints also exist in terms of emotional connection with brands or products. Men are "supposed" to buy vehicles based on facts and figures, right? However, don’t men also get misty eyed standing next to a very impractical, fantasy-world, sports car model, even when they know they need to buy a family mini-van?
Hmmm. There do seem to be some marketing implications here. Not that we want to figure out how to get men crying when they consider brands, BUT, that we, as marketers, are looking for ways to get all consumers a bit more engaged with their purchase process.
So, it comes down to the storytelling side of things. To be very literal:
A) Women can seem themselves in brands telling stories of "real women" using them, but can empathize less with brands telling stories of fantasy women or women who don’t seem to reflect their particular reality.
B) Men can see themselves in brands telling more fantasy/fictional stories of men using the product. Take, for example, trucks for which the airplane towing capacity is a supposed selling point. Men are perhaps not so inspired or engaged by stories of real guys using the truck to haul leaves to the compost heap on fall weekends.
Of course, in some cases, the "aspirational" approach does work for women - in terms of beauty and fashion, in particular. And, in some cases, real-life might still work for men - especially in terms of kids well-being, I imagine.
But, all this empathy talk does give you another thing to think about when you develop your next marketing storyline, doesn’t it?
