Unlocking emotional power: A new strategy for brands

One of my favorite quotes is that luxury is “pure emotion.” The mistake many brands make is focusing too much on creating and selling seemingly high-quality products, exclusive services, or lavish lifestyles through beautiful advertising campaigns. At its essence, luxury is about how brands make their clients feel. This emotional connection is the most valuable currency in the world of luxury, yet it's the single most critical aspect where many brands struggle. I was tasked with evaluating how “luxurious” one of the most well-known brands is, and my verdict: wonderful product, massive identity crisis. By "identity crisis," I mean a lack of clarity on the brand's role for its clients. One of the biggest challenges for luxury brands today is defining their “target emotion”—the specific feeling they want to evoke in their clients. Without a clear emotional goal, brands often fall back on generic clichés, reducing their messaging to empty buzzwords that lack substance. A quote I often hear from luxury leaders is, “We sell a dream.” While that might seem compelling, every luxury brand is trying to sell some version of a dream. This leads to vague, unmemorable positioning. The real question is: What kind of dream are you selling? This directly leads to the emotional deficit in brand storytelling for many luxury brands. At the heart of most storytelling issues is a failure to focus on a single, specific emotional outcome. Managers often think that more stories will better reflect the brand, but people usually remember just one thing. The more brands offer in their storytelling, the less they get across. Many brand architectures were developed when basic functional and emotional components sufficed to create a story. Back then, “selling a dream” was enough. Today, we live in a world dominated by algorithms, where clarity is key. Clients are savvier, more informed, and demand brands that resonate with their identity and emotions, requiring precision and focus. In brand audits across categories, I find that over 90% lack emotional depth. Brands cling to outdated messaging that no longer speaks to the evolving desires of their audience. This disconnect leads to erosion of brand loyalty and cultural relevance. Moving beyond the dream: Defining your target emotion through the eyes of your clients To stand out in today’s hyper-competitive luxury market, brands must go beyond selling dreams. They need to define the specific emotions they want to evoke. An abstract "dream" is not actionable—it’s a vague concept that means different things to different people. Brands need a more precise emotional call to action. How do you want clients to feel when they engage with your brand? Empowered? Confident? Elegant? Free? It can’t be everything, but it should be one clear ideology. This is where the power of emotional storytelling comes in. Brands need to shift their focus from broad ideas to one specific emotion. This requires understanding clients’ aspirations and passions on a deeper level. And it requires courage—the willingness to be one thing to some people rather than everything to everyone. Once a brand defines its target emotion, it can tell authentic stories that resonate with that emotion, inspiring connections beyond functional benefits. One of the most important shifts luxury brands must make is moving from brand-centric to client-centric storytelling. Too often, narratives revolve around heritage, craftsmanship, or exclusivity. These elements sound great in isolation, but when you zoom out, every brand says the same thing. Clients don’t just want to hear about how great a brand is—they want to know how the brand makes them feel. To achieve this, brands must adopt the perspective of their clients. What are their fears, aspirations, and desires? Cultural capital and emotional connection Cultural capital plays a crucial role in how brands emotionally connect with their clients. A brand tone-deaf to cultural shifts risks being seen as outdated or irrelevant. This is especially true in luxury, where clients expect brands to be at the forefront of cultural conversations. Emotional storytelling must be culturally relevant. It requires understanding the broader social and economic trends shaping consumer behavior and integrating them into the brand’s story. Brands that successfully combine cultural relevance with emotional storytelling create deeper connections with their discerning clients. A new approach to brand storytelling The power of luxury brands lies in creating an emotional response. To unlock this, brands need a fresh approach to storytelling, moving beyond the dream to focus on a clear, actionable target emotion. This requires a deep understanding of clients, cultural awareness, and a commitment to placing clients at the center of emotional storytelling. Luxury is about creating value through emotional resonance. Functional benefits alone aren’t enough to sustain a luxury brand today. Brands must tap into deep emotions driving client behavior, shifting from product-centricity to client-centricity. The key takeaway? Define your target emotion in the most precise way. Don’t sell a generic dream that sounds amazing in isolation. Create a specific, powerful emotional experience that resonates with your clients on a personal level. By doing so, you can unlock your brand’s full potential, creating loyal, emotionally invested clients who see your brand as an integral part of their identity. In a world where every competitor is selling a dream, the brands that define their target emotion will stand out. Don’t sell a dream. Sell your dream. This is an opinion piece by Daniel Langer, CEO of Équité, recognized as one of the “Global Top Five Luxury Key Opinion Leaders to Watch.” He serves as an executive professor of luxury strategy and pricing at Pepperdine University in Malibu and as a professor of luxury at NYU, New York. Daniel has authored best-selling books on luxury management in English and Chinese, and is a respected global keynote speaker. Daniel conducts masterclasses on various luxury topics across the world. As a luxury expert featured on Bloomberg TV, Forbes, The Economist, and others; Daniel holds an MBA and a Ph.D. in luxury management, and has received education from Harvard Business School. Sign up for his masterclasses at the Jing Academy. Follow him: LinkedIn and Instagram. All opinions expressed in the column are his own and do not reflect the official position of Jing Daily.

Unlocking emotional power: A new strategy for brands

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Published September 09, 2024

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Unlocking emotional power: A new strategy for brands