Emotion Marketing: The Hallmark Way of Winning Customers for Life

Citation

Fawcett, J.K. (2002), "Emotion Marketing: The Hallmark Way of Winning Customers for Life", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 74-82. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2002.19.1.74.4

It is Sunday evening and you decide to unwind by watching some television. The program is a special presentation, and the quality was better than most shows you have seen in quite a while. As you relax and let your defenses down, a commercial airs. You find yourself instantly pulled into the world of a schoolboy who has lingered after the bell has rung and his friends have left for their vacation. He slowly rises and approaches his teacher’s desk explaining that he, not his mom, wants him to thank her for all of the extra time she has spent helping him to learn how to read. He pulls a greeting card out of his backpack and hands it to the young teacher. As she says thank you to the boy, he turns and asks if he can read it to her. What a direct hit to the emotions! Welcome to the world of Hallmark Cards and Emotion Marketing.

In a world bent on technology that continues to put distance between company and customer, it is truly refreshing to read about a group of marketers that are still dedicated to caring for their customers in a personal way. This book provides a new perspective on how lifelong loyalty can be built by emphasizing the emotional component of human interactions. Hallmark’s proprietary model for assessing loyalty is discussed in detail and related to current marketing practices by Hallmark as well as other companies.

Let me begin with a caveat: “Building strong relationships is a long‐term proposition. True loyalty isn’t earned in a month or a quarter – but evidence proves the benefits are well worth the investment” (p. 212). Emotion marketing is neither quick nor easy to employ, but the results are measured in loyal customers who spend more and stick with the caring company far longer. The authors punctuate their description of their proprietary methods with the evidence of how loyal customers make a difference in the bottom line. If there is one main point to be made it is that emotion marketing is a function of the entire corporation, not just a heart‐tugging advertising campaign. The entire company must somehow show the customer that they truly care about them as people.

The book is divided into sections as follows.

Part one: why emotion marketing works

This section is really designed to hook the non‐believers. Business people fancy themselves as rational beings who compete in a rational world for customers assumed to be making rational decisions. In reality, if we were to be honest, many of our decisions are made based on far less than truly rational criteria. We consumers have a tendency to be loyal to companies or brands that we trust. The premise of emotion‐based marketing is that loyalty leads to profits, but a consumer’s overall satisfaction with a company or product is not enough to inspire true and long‐lasting loyalty. Rather, the key ingredient to building the type of loyalty desired is the emotional bond between company and customer. “Emotion marketing helps the business deliver the right emotional content and message, at the right place, at the right time, to the right consumers” (p. 16) in order to create those bonds.

The second chapter provides the framework that Hallmark uses to model emotion marketing, called Value Star^sm. This model takes into account five different dimensions of what consumers value: equity, experience, energy, product and money. The three Es represent the emotional side of the transaction, while product and money signify the rational side. “The emotional Es not only provide opportunities for clear differentiation from the competition, but research shows they actually drive the majority of decisions to purchase” (p. 24). Consumers are emotional beings and strive to meet those higher‐level needs in every facet of life, including consumption decisions.

Part two: what emotion marketing is all about

The next portion of the book (chapters 3 through 6) is dedicated to the description and implementation of the Value Star^sm model of consumer valuation. Each chapter provides a unique and thought‐provoking look into the marketing transaction and how it relates to one of the emotional Es from the consumer’s perspective.

For example, as a company builds brand equity with the consumer, the internal identity of the company must be the same as the external image of the firm. This equality can only occur after providing the consumer with what is promised and doing so consistently over time. The warning is to be careful how you define what business you are in and what you can provide for your customers. Hallmark is in the “social customs” business and as such has a wide‐open field of endeavor to meet its customers’ needs.

The right kind of experience (atmosphere, event, employees, etc.) can create a tremendous sense of belonging and camaraderie that leads to customer loyalty. “Consumers have loyalty to give. Rewards may rent their loyalty temporarily, but emotion‐based experiences will own it” (p. 77).

The energy that is necessary to expend to take advantage of a product or service is also fertile soil for emotion marketing. In our time‐impoverished world, customers want to save as much time and therefore money as possible. Enter the gift bag by Hallmark. The bags offer all of the beauty and none of the hassle of conventional wrapping. The big winner was Hallmark as they told the customers they care about what takes up their time and makes their lives more difficult. “Companies that waste people’s energy send the message that they don’t care” (p. 80).

The final chapter in this section covers the minimum ante in the exchange game, acceptable product quality and pricing. Although these are rational inputs, they are still necessary for the emotional components to be of use in differentiating a product offering. The emotional Es cannot make up for a poor product or too high a price.

Part three: how to put emotion marketing to work

The final section of the book takes a practical look at how to apply the Value Star^sm model to any business concern. The good people at Hallmark have set out to spread the good news of emotion marketing. They are convinced that when appropriately implemented, emotion marketing creates a differential advantage that cannot be easily replicated.

Emotion marketing is also applied to building long‐lasting customer relationships, marketing communications, marketing on the Internet, and most importantly, to dealing with your own employees. If we spend a good amount of time on customer transactions that are fleeting, how much more effort should be expended on our own employees who spend half of their waking hours at work?

The final chapter and the appendix provide a good tutorial on how any company might assess where they are in relation to emotion marketing and how they might do better in the future. Assessment tools are provided for gauging loyalty efforts under way, the current value proposition, and each of the five components of the Value Star^sm. As a bonus, a Web site is listed that provides some of the same tools and also a way to contact Hallmark Loyalty Marketing Group, the consulting arm of the company.

Emotion Marketing is a must read for anyone that is looking for a long‐term sustainable competitive advantage. It is also a good source for anyone who is stymied concerning how to go beyond frequency programs to build relationships with their customers and with their employees, for that matter. If implemented well, both of these groups will be far more loyal to the firm, and the bottom line will be better off as well.