Traditionally, unearthing Emotional End Benefits has been done through benefit chain/laddering exercises. The unfortunate thing is that these exercises tend to be tedious and, in the hands of a less than master practitioner can leave us somewhere in the middle of the ladder or jumping to the ultimate end benefit of
“I feel good/better/ecstatic/like myself more/higher self worth” etc.
The problem with these answers is that they leave us in the dark. We’re doing the exercise to find differentiating emotional hot buttons that help set the mood and tone of our marketing. What can a creative do with emotional end benefits of enhanced self esteem? They need more specific direction in what the communications needs to look like, feel like, sound like for that category and product and more importantly, that particular brand. Unfinished ladders leave us in the dark, having to project our own beliefs onto the branding and advertising instead of designing for our target markets.
After years of conducting 1000’s of benefit chains, as I mentioned in the previous post, we have constructed a model of Emotional End Benefits. Some lead to Trial and Some Lead to Repeat. Ideally we want both. Fortunately, there are features and functions that secure both.
More importantly, through extensive research, we now know that various Brand Archetypes suggest different and specific Emotional End Benefits. So you no longer have to go through the long, arduous task of pulling teeth from respondents in IDI’s [taking up long portions of it] to identify meaningful emotional benefits. We’ve done the work for you.
To tempt you to join our new www.IconiCards.com club and learn the specific connections of archetypes to emotional benefits so you can more easily empower your clients to leverage brand archetyping, let me give you a few examples.
- If your brand is a Conqueror, like some aggressive antibiotics, the emotional end benefit is Winning the competition and Triumphing over the deadly bugs.
- That’s in contrast to the Angel image, in the same category of antibiotics, which is all about Gentle, Compassionate, Caregiving.
- Another antibiotic might be the Engineer, which is a targeted product that accomplishes its goal by being the Smartest guy/gal on the block.
If you’re interested in the www.IconiCards.com club it’s $49/month. Email me Sharonl@tlgonline.com or call my cell 603 5050 5000 and I’ll let you know all about it. BTW, the cards have been getting a super response. Wait til you hear all the wonderful stories people are sharing.
Hope you’re getting to enjoy the holiday pre-season and,
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sharon 
Dr. Sharon Livingston, President
The Livingston Group for Marketing, Inc.
office:603.537.0775 mobile:603.505.5000
www.tlgonline.com
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Comments
January 30 2009
Hi Sharon:
Finally, I had the first opportunity to work with the recently bought IconiCards and I really needed to tell you they were doing the exact job I was hoping for! My core business in qualitative research is in the pharmaceutical industry and especially our German physicians love to show themselves as pure scientists, rational professionals bla bla bla
The cards gave me the opportunity to not only “crack” their minds for a more honest and much more emotional insight but starting the interview session with a lot of fun as well. My clients had been very excited and intrigued about the results and I am absolutely sure to use the cards as often as possible.
What I especially like about them is the “cartoonic” drawing instead of the so often used photograph images. The way those cards are done they leave much more space for the valuable associations we are looking for in our in-depth explorative interviews.
So, again, thank you so much for providing me with a tool I am only beginning to learn how to use to it’s best opportunities and possibilities! I will stay in touch with further experience.
Warm regards,
Petra
August 14 2010
Powerful post.