Why Emotion Beats Logic if you Want to Connect

You’ve spent time, energy and budget crafting your message, polishing your visuals and planning your launch… only to see your content get swallowed up by the gaping jaws of the scroll monster, never to be seen, shared or liked again.

You know your message has value, the logic is sound – so why isn't it cutting through? Why aren't people engaging?

In today's oversaturated landscape, simply presenting a logical, rational argument isn't going to convert anyone to your cause. It's emotion, delivered with authenticity, that more often grabs attention, builds connection and drives the behaviour or mindset change you’re seeking.

Facts x Feels

Let's be clear: facts, data, and logical reasoning are still crucial in business communication. They can help build credibility and inform decisions in a world awash with competing claims. But, delivered in isolation, they also risk being met with a giant collective shrug.

Relying solely on logic in your video content ignores a fundamental truth about your audience: they are human. They navigate their physical and online worlds guided by much more than just rational thought. Purely logical appeals often struggle to:

• Capture Fleeting Attention: Logic requires cognitive effort to untangle; emotion creates an immediate instinctive hook.

• Be Memorable: We’re wired to remember experiences tied to emotion far better than dry facts.

• Build Trust: Logic informs, but shared feeling and perceived authenticity generate trust and more durable relationships.

• Inspire Action: While logic might justify a decision, emotion often provides the motivation to act.

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Think about the videos that you remember, the ones that made you pause and react. Chances are, they made you feel something: curiosity, empathy, joy, inspiration, surprise, reassurance. Emotion acts as a powerful amplifier by:

• Cutting Through the Clutter: Demanding attention on a primal level.

• Creating Lasting Memories: Embedding your message more deeply.

• Building Brand Affinity: Connecting on a more relatable, human level and fostering loyalty beyond features and benefits.

• Motivating Behaviour: Compelling a change in action, opinion or thought.

Video = Sight, Sound, Story & Soul

Video uniquely combines imagery, sound, music and human faces with spoken or written words. Each element can be a powerful driver of emotion in their own right, but are exceptionally adept at storytelling when combined.

A well-crafted video narrative – one with relatable perspectives, clear stakes, a compelling journey and aspirational outcome – allows viewers to see themselves within the story, understand complex ideas intuitively and desire an outcome. When authenticity shines through, trust follows, and the emotional connection deepens.

The Logic of Emotion

This isn't about creating touchy-feely ‘fluff’. Connecting emotionally through authentic video storytelling is a strategic imperative, and here’s where facts come in handy because there’s plenty of cold, hard evidence to prove why:

• Research by effectiveness experts Les Binet and Peter Field, using decades of IPA data, showed that campaigns leading with emotion were often found to be twice as effective in terms of profitability gains compared to purely rational campaigns (source: The Long and the Short of It - IPA).

• Neuroscience confirms that emotion acts as a powerful gateway to attention and memory; content that resonates emotionally is simply harder to ignore and easier to recall (source: Why do We Remember Emotional Events Better? - Columbia Engineering)

• While we like to think we make rational decisions, neuroscience suggests emotions often play a decisive role, with logic used more often to justify decisions post-hoc. Research suggests around 70% of decisions are emotional, with only 30% based on rational factors (source: Customer Brand Preference and Decisions - Gallup).

• Research published by the Harvard Business Review shows that emotionally connected customers are significantly more valuable than those merely satisfied. They found these customers can have 52% higher lifetime value, spend more, are less price-sensitive, and advocate more for the brand (source: The New Science of Customer Emotions - HBR).

At CiK, we believe that the most effective communication happens when logic is infused with genuine emotion and delivered through compelling, authentic storytelling. It’s how you turn passive viewers into engaged audiences and ensure your message doesn’t just exist, but truly connects and delivers results.

Ready to create video content that resonates more deeply? Let's talk about the stories your brand could be telling.