THE EMOTIONAL ANIMAL — lessons from advertising

I recently broadcasted an advertisement of a fitness program for people over forty years of age saying SENIOR’S FITNESS, the one I show to illustrate this article. A couple of minutes after I broadcasted it, someone from my contacts list, let’s call it HE, wrote to me.

Before continuing, allow me a quick description of HE. He is a western told, athletic and certainly well educated professional, who practices fighting sports.

HE: “Since when did 40 become become senior citizens?”

to which I, The Author, replied with the following note:

The Author: “Since there are people under that age. For example, someone in the fourth year of college is a senior to someone in the second year. Some one in his/her 40’s is a senior to someone in his/her 30’s, Someone working 10 years in a company is a senior to someone who just entered the org. regardless their age, and so on”. I added that “current folk knowledge speaks of senior citizens to refer to those in retirement, but that is limiting and basically wrong”.

HE: “I see that’s one way to look at it. But applying the label senior to such age in an ad also seems like a scare tactic –people who do not think of themselves as being seniors at that age and looks at your ad may suddenly feel old”

The Author: “It’s a good point. Will come up with something to clear the fog. Thank you so much for the feedback”.

Since this exchange took place in a public cyber space, I also wrote to him privately to thanks him for the note. To this private note, he reply with the following:

HE: “No worries man. I just get annoyed by sales pitches that try to make me feel bad about myself”.

There are several aspects to note and learn from his reaction: 1) the connotation attached to the word senior, 2) the fact that he read the word “citizen” where there is none, 3) he sees the word senior as a label that is scary and leads to feeling old, 4) his assertion that such word makes him feel bad about himself, and 5) the word “senior” touched him at an emotional level.

This is an excellent case study on the use of words and their impact on human emotions, and its application is wide. For example, marketing professionals can benefit because it calls attention to the emotional impact of words, which is the trick number one in leading people to consume, vote for a candidate, or enrolled in charity among other activities. This case is also useful for teachers as it is for anybody managing people, or anybody interacting within cross-cultural communities. Basically, this case is useful for any person dealing with another person. Let’s analyze the narrative both in the ad as well as the one in HE’s head.

1. The connotation attached to the word “Senior”.

The success of an ad is in it’s emotional impact, the careful selection of to whom it delivers the message, and when. The way to say it could be in words or images, or both. In this case, we speak of a word –senior.

But it’s not the word or the image we use in advertising what really matters. The connotation attached to it is more significant than the word/image itself because its impact on human emotions is greater than a plain definition. This connotation obeys a context (place, demography, time, etc.). When a connotation is made popular within a context, it starts being widely use and so it acquires its “true” meaning. The meaning that is true for that community, within a specific context, at an specific time.

According the online Cambridge Dictionary, Senior refers to: more advanced or higher in rank –which was the intended meaning in the original ad. Senior, Cambridge says, also refers to being older –not old (clarification added by the author).

However, for HE, a professional just like myself and many others, the Cambridge definition doesn’t matter. Even when I have explained what the word senior “really” means, this person remained attached to whatever meaning he holds as valid for the word “senior”. In his case, senior means old and old means bad.

To find out what others think, I asked twenty-five people, thirteen men and twelve women, age thirty five to forty two, how would they feel is someone call them senior. Answers range from “it would make me feel old” to “I don’t care what people think”(with a frown on their face). Some people say something like “that would happen when I am sixty”, “I am not sixty yet” or “I slap him on the face”. In general, it seems that the connotation attached to the word Senior is “old” and is not welcomed by people around forty years of age because it send the message of being old.

2) HE added the word “citizen” where there is none.

There is a psychological process called “confirmation bias”. This is the process where people’s desires or believes influence what they see and how they perceive stimuli. In this process, the individual stops gathering information, or add more information, so that the result matches his or her preconception of a person or a situation… or a word.

We scan a scenario looking for pieces that match our believes, ignoring whatever does not, or adding whatever is not there. In this case, HE added the word “citizen” to complete the phrase that perfectly matches the image of “senior” he holds in his mind. This is most of the time an unconscious action.

Senior citizens is a popular phrase, not a word, referring to people somewhere around fifty-five years of age, who might be retired, white hair and wrinkle faces (by google search engine).

3) HE sees the word “senior” as a label that is scary and leads to feeling old.

I sustain that advertising, regardless of the content, is the perfect tool to create culture, because, through social media, it reaches masses and it touches people at an emotional level. And most of us, make decisions based on emotional reactions. It that sense, whatever advertisements say may become the truths people hold in their minds and hearts, to the point that we follow ads like oracles.

Our society treats people with white hair with a sort of kindness, in a softer manner, and at the same time tend to leave them off the day-to-day activities leading to development, specially the workplace, which is a big part of our life. This implies that the elder population is somehow physically and mentally weak, less useful in society, and definitely not in the world of fashion, where the look matters the most. Wrinkles and white hair is never presented as a happy reality, unless it is for retirement policies, insurances, medication, and the like.

Hence, HE’s negative reaction to the word senior is understandable. Being put aside in society is, for a highly social specie, scary indeed.

4) HE’s assertion that such word makes him feel bad about himself.

The reason goes to point number three again. One of the main sources of depression is the sense of being useless, of losing value in society. When reaching the age of retirement, many people start feeling depressed because they know how society will see and treat them… as old and useless.

5) “Senior” touched HE at an emotional level.

Emotions are the Achilles Tendon of human beings. Emotions are both a bless and course. On the bright side, emotions allows us empathy and push us moving forward to the extent that we get into heroic actions that put our lives at risk. On the dark side, emotions may stir anger and rage, and might take sudden actions that can cause someone’s death; emotions can bring us up or down depending on whether they are positive or negative.

Emotions play an important role in our decision making and our psychological states. That is why marketing and presidential campaigns include emotional elements in their content. In the case of the word “senior”, it provoked bad emotions in HE, to the point that he raised his voice and say: wait a minute!

Lesson learned. HE’s feedback was a great reminding note for me. I teach this, and yet, excited by the my new fitness program, and tricked by my academic side, I forgot the number one rule in advertising: Touch your audience at an emotional level… a positive emotion in this case.

Listening to the audience, I make small changes on the narrative, which produced great results indeed. Here is the modify version of the add.

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Photo on the ad by Tommy Lisbin.