The World Doesn’t Need More Ads. It Needs More Joy. Make Both

How many times a day do you look up from your spreadsheet and think: Did I sign up for this?

Because very likely, you got into marketing to put things into the world that people love. And if you did your job right, people would open wallets and hearts to your brand. Moving market share is the end goal, sure, but the real fun was in making people excited enough about your brand to voluntarily choose it.

What happened? Did the spreadsheets kill creativity? Did the race for ROI shunt emotion to the back seat?

For me, the answer is 'no.' Or, not yet at least. I’ve spent the last year betting my business on the hope – then the proof – that advertising can still be a positive for the humans that see it.

Two years ago, I was becoming weary of the inhumanity in marketing – and in agencies. The truth of it is that the world doesn’t need another ad agency. It needs less crappy advertising. You’d think that’s as simple as letting great talent loose on brand problems – but even great talent creates mediocre work under the wrong conditions. My chief creative officer, Dave Damman, calls this 'dumb, joyless advertising.'

So, our agency has adopted something of a new purpose...

Let’s Rid the World of Dumb, Joyless Advertising

Less crappy advertising is inherently better for the consumer. It introduces them to new ideas, but even more, it lets them feel something in their lives that brands uniquely bring them. I decided to make my agency collectively get up every morning to put more good into the world through advertising that makes people feel good.

So a year ago, we relaunched with actual proof that driving positive emotional value isn’t just inspiring – it’s a sound business strategy. That value, which we call joy, is a hugely powerful force. There are so many modes of joy that trigger these moments of uplift. It’s not just sunshine and humour. Nostalgia, catharsis, empathy – used in the right context, these all unleash joy.

But how can joy be used to drive business? Our research shows that when a brand unleashes joy, it not only gets credit for the role it’s played in someone’s life – it drives purchase intent, no matter what category, no matter what consumer type. PETERMAYER’s Brand Joy Lab studied this pattern for nearly two years, with over 8,000 consumers, and the .eight correlation holds true over time and over hundreds of questions.

We’re in times, as consumers, where we need to find our own paths to joy. As a culture, the US is just not so joyful. Our joy scores (on a 1=life sucks to 5=life is pure joy) hover around 2.3, and they’ve been that way since we’ve started monitoring.

And now, like seemingly everything else, our society’s emotional state is bifurcated. If your guy won the presidential election, you are hovering around a 3.2 joy score. If not, you are in the two's. Bottom line: Nobody’s elated, and some are downright bummed out.

Joy in Your Brand: Where to Get Started

It may be hard to start thinking about how to improve joy for consumers. There are some really simple starting places that, after studying and solving for it for a year, you can start thinking about.

• Have AI analyse subreddit text about your brand to find the most positive and negative adjectives that repeat themselves about your brand. Do the same for competition. Your consumers are telling you how you make them feel.
  
• What is the most impactful moment a customer spends with your brand? It could be a point of service conversation, or unboxing. What’s this telling you about the brand’s style of caring, or its tactile nature?
  
• What kind of memories are people forming around your brand? Is there a sense of nostalgia, awe, connection, or something else?
  

All of these clues should allow you to articulate the keys to the inherent joy in your brand.

Tapping into the Joy Support System

We believe that marketing can be additive to our audiences’ lives. If you can present a moment of joy, you’ll build business through an emotionally powerful ladder.

After asking 8,000 Americans, the Brand Joy Lab has found that people consistently derive joy from these five foundational elements:

• Love of family and friends. Giving and receiving. Giving being the more powerful drive of joy.
  
• Stability of relationships and home.
  
• Security of financial well-being.
  
• Personal health and the health of loved ones.
  
• Faith/trust in a higher power and the awe of nature.
  

This is the joy support system; if they are in place, we are more likely to feel joy from other means (like, say, candy bars and funny commercials).

How Brands Can Bring Joy through Marketing

Short answer: Contribute to the joy support system. So many brands languish in what you might think of as 'joyless categories': utilities, banking, insurance, healthcare. Yet, one’s ability to build their joy support system resides almost entirely within these categories.

Having health insurance provides peace of mind. Having a financial plan provides feelings of security. Having a solid internet connection ensures a smoothly functioning home. Brands in these categories have traditionally struggled to think beyond logic and into the magic of supporting lives. This is the key to unlocking growth.

Even more brands are in commoditised categories. Pickles are a green sea on grocery shelves. So, what makes us choose one over the next beyond price? I’m here to tell you, pickles are damned joyful. If you’re a pickle person, you know. Triggering that enjoyment moment will guarantee a smile and put that brand on the list.

One Year In. What Have We Learned?

Since we’ve re-oriented our agency around unleashing Brand Joy, we’ve workshopped briefs with clients in lively sessions. We’ve created new ways of ideating that pull joy levers. We’re rolling out creative resulting from those briefs – and seeing significant gains in effectiveness in precampaign research as well as return on ad spend.

Some unexpected results have occurred as well. The makers of the work are more joyful. They’re getting more satisfaction in cracking the code to satisfy the ad’s viewers. And our clients are more joyful. They’re using the structure and terminology of the briefs to talk with each other and sell ideas internally. There’s a joy ecosystem that’s forming.

I’m not sure exactly why this is – except that I’ve noticed joy is a contagion. People crave it. They inherently understand it. And they immediately acknowledge that we need to manufacture more of it. In a culture that’s a downer, marketing can be an upper. It’s a mission worth bouncing out of bed every morning.