Imagine you have a bunch people in a room talking about buying or using a certain product or service. Like in a focus group. And you happen to know that emotion drives behavior more than logic. So how do you get these folks to reveal not just their thoughts but their underlying feelings too?

Let's set aside the assumption (and it's a significant one!) that the people are aware of and able to talk about their feelings. 

One standard query, borrowed from psychotherapy, is asking "How do you feel about that?" In my opinion, this is bad in therapy and it's bad in marketing research. As soon as we ask "How..." we are inviting people to become analytical, which frequently moves them away from feelings, not towards them. That's why responses are usually not expressions of emotion, but rather thoughts like "I feel that it's a good product" or simply "OK." When we get more directive, and say "How does that make you feel?" we still hear back thoughts, but often coupled with defensiveness triggered by the implied causality.

What works better is to ask what questions like "When you use the product, what do you feel?" perhaps supplemented with a range of examples. However, I think it's most effective to probe about feelings in real time when we observe them. For example, if you see people become passionate in a discussion, acknowledge it and get more by saying, "You seem to have strong feelings about that. Tell me about it." And when doing so, be sure you echo back the intensity of the feelings they expressed.

Getting people to talk honestly about their feelings is an art. And it's not easy. A lot of moderators are more comfortable facilitating discussions about thoughts and ideas, rather than feelings and emotion. But bottom line, nothing makes for open hearts and deeper connections more than the respectful and honest sharing of emotion. Which makes the outcomes of marketing research far more effective.

Image source: http://cache2.artprintimages.com/p/LRG/7/781/6G8I000Z/art-print/jim-borgman-h...

I just saw (again) the happy UPS song-ad targeting international business, which reminded me how much I admire their We Love Logistics campaign (Ogilvy). Check it out! (And don't blame me if the song gets stuck in your head!).

After almost a decade of What Can Brown Do For You (Martin Agency), last fall UPS launched their new campaign, which is squarely aligned with their global growth strategy. Here's how UPS explains it:

Everybody loves something. We love logistics. We love its precision, its epic scale, its ability to make life better for billions of people. Each day, our customers count on us to choreograph a ballet of infinite complexity played across skies, oceans and borders. And we do. What's not to love?

Here are six key branding and identity-building lessons from this highly successful and viral campaign:

1. Creating a new category: By branding logistics as "The New Logistics," UPS is creating a new and much broader category, one which compels us (as "new" often does!) to want to know more, and one which they aim to own!

2. Think/Feel/Do: They are changing what people think about logistics, then associating those thoughts with good feelings, and then connecting those good feelings with UPS. The classic hierarchy of effects.

3. Capturing emotion: There aren't many business topics that are more left-brain sounding - and potentially boring - than logistics. Yet, UPS takes a lighthearted, fun, and strategic approach to bring feeling and life to logistics. (Even my teenager said "I love that ad!" and starting singing the song. He even knew lots of the words!). UPS doesn't just do logistics, they love logistics. (In all your spare time, count all the hearts in their cross-platform communications).

4. Focus on benefits: It's not really about logistics, it's about the benefits their global logistics network enables for small and medium size businesses. Check out their time and money savings calculator here.

5. Brand identity: And it's not just a branding campaign. It's recrafting their identity - their organizational soul - by expanding from shipping to logistics (more here in this Supply Chain Digital article). They manage to memorably convey everything they do, which is - dare I say "logistically!" - pretty complex, in a 30 second ad.

6. Operations-communications-sales alignment: Over the last several years, UPS has acquired dozens of companies to create their worldwide logistics network. They focus more on supply chain execs and CAOs, rather than just on shipping managers (more here). And their campaign brings it all to life in a personally relevant and highly engaging way!

Well done UPS (again)!