It’s science: Purchase decisions are driven by emotion. Join GPS technology giant Garmin and advertising technology leader Undertone to learn how to develop pitch-perfect creative that sparks connection and amps up conversions.

Access this VB Live event on demand right here.

“Digital can be more personal and feel more relevant [than traditional media],” says Carla Meyer, global digital advertising and social media manager at Garmin. “There’s a one-on-one relationship.”

That’s why digital advertising has given marketers an unprecedented opportunity to leverage the intimate attachment consumers have with their smartphones, but there’s a difference between a good ad and one that gets lost in the crowd. The key to doing it successfully? Powerful creative that has the ability to spark real emotion in your customer.

“We think that this whole notion of emotion is a bit of a secret weapon in the marketer’s arsenal, if used correctly,” says  Eric Franchi, co-founder and SVP of business development at Garmin’s media partner, Undertone. “It might actually be the metric to rule them all.”

It’s rooted in science, Franchi says. Most people think that purchase decisions are rational decisions, filled with careful feature comparisons and deep thinking about your budget, your lifestyle, your wants and needs, and what your neighbor has. But research shows that the majority of our decisions are emotional, including, or maybe especially, purchase decisions.

“Emotion has been proven to build brands and drive engagement,” Franchi explains. “Emotion is not only the key to engagement, it’s critical to getting results.”

The more you feel, the more you buy when everything is equal, he says. Feeling nothing is an indicator of indifference, which is the least effective emotion of all, for a marketer.

“Feel nothing, buy nothing,” Franchi adds.

So digital advertising has to go beyond knocking out advertisements, and become all about creating experiences for consumers. And Garmin is working to do that by knocking down more than just the walls in their customers’ hearts.

“One thing that we’ve done specificially in the past year that’s been really key to our digital success has been breaking down the silos in our department,” Meyer explains. “Before we just said, ‘Hey, here’s the media strategy. Creative, go create this for us.’ It was a handoff process.”

But now everyone’s involved throughout the entire timeline, with the media strategy team, creatives, data, and buying teams all at the table with their media partner, building the media strategy together.

“For us, this allows everyone to be on the exact same page, know exactly what our goals are, what we’re trying to achieve,” says Meyer. “Our partner is sharing their best practices and insights and what they absolutely know to be true for the media that they’re running for us, and our creatives get to hear that too.”

That partnership helped create one of Garmin’s most successful campaigns, called Beat Yesterday, featuring two of their flagship wearable products. The digital facet of the campaign used components from the TV commercial and other creative elements.

“We wanted to take those components and really work to engage the audience to compel them to want to join the community of Beat Yesterday or live a healthier lifestyle,” Meyer says. “Our goals were to drive not only product awareness and web traffic, but really start engaging and driving sales, and start to build that community and drive up that emotion with our audience and our customers.”

“If you own a smartwatch or have been thinking about it, you know this is a very crowded and competitive space,” she adds. “There’s a lot of heavy hitters in this space. So we were looking for a way to stand out — how do we connect?”

The challenge: How do you spark the emotion that changes how the consumer thinks? How do you spark the emotion that actually gets them to engage once you’ve captured their attention?

Alongside Undertone, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work on building out the emotional promise of the Beat Yesterday framework: the idea that every day is a new opportunity to go bigger, do better.

The campaign was a huge success, says Franchi. A tightly controlled consumer focus group gave it unprecedented near-perfect marks.

How did they do it? Catch up on this in-depth VB Live event, where Meyer and Franchi will take you step-by-step through the process of creating the ad, how you can leverage those techniques in your own campaigns, and the key components for building out a creative strategy that wins hearts.

Don’t miss out.

Access the VB Live event on demand right here!

  • In this webinar you’ll learn how to:
  • Find your customers online and how to reach them
  • Refine targeting and creative with data
  • Leverage creative as the key variable in digital marketing
  • Reach out to influencers, the new gatekeepers

Speakers:

  • Carla Meyer, Global Digital Advertising and Social Media Manager, Garmin
  • Eric Franchi, Co-founder and SVP Business Development, Undertone

Moderator:

Wendy Schuchart, Analyst, VentureBeat

This VB Live event is sponsored by Undertone.