We lean on how something feels when making a fast judgment.
More quotesAdvertising’s favourite false choice is heart or head. Pick a department, pick a mood board, then spend a fortune proving the distinction was bollocks.
A product demonstration can be intensely emotional because consequences have feelings attached. Watch a suitcase survive being hurled down concrete steps and you picture your laptop arriving intact. See a stain vanish from a child’s shirt and you feel relief before anyone has hired a string quartet. Reliability sounds rational only until you are stranded on a wet hard shoulder at midnight. Then it becomes romance.
The industry often treats emotion as a decorative coating: sad piano, wistful child, dog looking nobly into middle distance. None of those things is bad. They are merely rented sentiment when the product has done nothing to earn them. Evidence earns emotion by letting the audience complete the circuit themselves. The quiet car door says care. The refund arriving instantly says respect. The torch that still works after a week in a bucket says somebody gave a damn.
This does make life harder. “Make them feel something” is a lovely brief because almost any expensive film can pretend to answer it. “Give them a reason to feel safe, smug, relieved or clever” demands a product truth and a demonstration sharp enough to carry it. That is where the work starts. Tears are cheap. Proof with consequences is the premium stuff.