Logic versus emotion

Grant Leboff: Bryony, one of the interesting things when people are in marketing, is this whole debate and split about how logic plays a part of the process, how emotion plays a part in the process. What’s your take on that?

Bryony Thomas: It’s a fascinating area, isn’t it? It’s an area that I explore a lot in a concept I call the logic sandwich, which essentially means that the logic has to be sandwiched by emotion. Because, really, you can’t draw somebody into really engaging with your logic unless you’ve first triggered an emotional response. That’s also why I get very upset with people thinking they need a killer message or an elevator pitch, because it’s only as good as the next message, where you’re taking them to.

In a logic sandwich I would say you need to first of all trigger an emotional response so that the brain goes, “Hey, what was that? I’m now ready to listen.” In order to then present your logic. If you leave it there it’s really unsatisfying. You go, “Hey, what was that?” Tick, tick, tick and then your brain will go back to, “Ah, I see.” There’s relief, there’s emotion in that. In order to have a fully satisfying process of decision making it would need to go, emotion, then logic, then emotion.

Grant Leboff: In terms of identifying the emotion that you want to put across to the customer, how would you advise people to do that? Because, there’s a whole gamut of emotions right? People are much clearer, let’s say, normally, on the benefits they can offer.

Bryony Thomas: Of course.

Grant Leboff: But when it comes to the emotional triggers, how would you suggest they go about identifying perhaps what those should be within the context of their offering?

Bryony Thomas: You make a really good point, in as much as most people are very knowledgeable about their own benefits, the benefits of the product and service, but it’s only really a benefit if it plays back to something that somebody needs, and that need has to be emotional in order for them to engage with the logic of your product. I would say, first of all, it’s not about triggering an emotion that doesn’t already exist. That’s one of the key points I always like to make with people, this isn’t manipulation, it’s not making them feel something they didn’t already feel. It’s about shining a light in a way that gets them to go, “Ah, I do feel like that. Yes, you’re talking to me.”

It would be about stepping back through their buying journey, stepping back through their decision making, to work out what was going on for them emotionally that would draw them to buy whatever it is you’re selling. I talk a document management system in the book and how the logic is that you can manage all sorts of documents, and it’s scalable, etc., but the emotion is probably overwhelm, “Oh my god, I can’t find anything! We’re not being productive. I’d like to get more out of my team, so I can get home to read my kids a bedtime story.” That’s not, “Is this scalable?”

Grant Leboff: It’s understanding not just the problem that you solve on a logical level, but also what that problem means on an emotional level. Is that the way of thinking about it?

Bryony Thomas: Absolutely. If you were to go to your existing customers, people who’ve already bought, and then reverse back through their life to before they bought from you and get them to talk you through where they were before, what was going on for them that made them think this might be something they need in their life. If you then do a kind of why, why, why exercise to reverse back, you will usually find an emotion that’s usually quite an uncomfortable emotion, that they wanted to solve, ameliorate in some way to get them out of that uncomfortable place.

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