Neuroscience confirms the strengths of the CODAR model and the importance of emotion

And proof from NSPCC

Neuroscience is all the rage in marketing at the moment, with some justification, although we should definitely not assume it has all the answers. The debate about how advertising works (and for advertising we mean the full range of marketing communication involved in persuading consumers to love our brands and buy them), and how strongly, continues to be one of the hot subjects. With Robert Heath promoting the low attention processing model and Millward Brown, for example, continuing to promote ad awareness research and the importance of conscious processing of advertising (they would wouldn't they given the strength of their research in this field), practioners may wonder which way to go.

There are also related debates about the relative value of measuring prompted or unprompted awareness/recognition, given that it appears that many people have a connection with the brand that they do not even know that they have. Take a look at almost any Derren Brown TV programme and you will see how he manipulates the unconscious decision-making of his audience.

Beyond the political debate, several discoveries do not seem to be in much dispute, as I have been arguing for more than a dozen years. One is the importance of emotion and indeed its crucial role in decision-making and memory. The importance of the emotional elements of the brain in attention, decision-making and behaviour have been progressively reinforced for more than a decade, overturning the philosophical model of Descartes.

Here is an easy way to make sense of it: it doesn't matter how much rational thinking you do about a decision, it all ends up at the point where you decide whether it feels right to go with your decision. That process can last a microsecond or six months. It can be a personal affair or involve a team. But at the end of the day, whoever is making the decision makes it because of a judgement and the scales consist of an emotional balance.

So emotion matters. But neuroscience also confirms what has been an important strand of psychological theory for a century: human beings have three elements of mind and for anything to happen all three have to get engaged. They are the knowledge/cognitive, affective/emotional and conative/action elements. Much of the history of advertising has engaged with these three, but usually in fruitless pursuit of an hierarchy of effects, like the discredited AIDA model. While this has some relevance to loyalty ladders (like WPPs Brandz or the Conversion Model), it is wrong to get stuck in sequential models. But it is important to plan your communication around these three in their relative priority. That is why in CODAR these are three of the five planning dimensions that are used for all communication planning.

Here is what happens when some people watch dancers on a stage. Exactly the same parts of the brain become active as in dancers themselves

That's not all. An exhaustive review of what works in advertising by Vakratsas and Ambler* confirms that 'experience' is one of the crucial elements. Research in brain/consciousness science has helped us to understand this element, confirming some psychological theory with hard science. Here is what happens when some people watch dancers on a stage. Exactly the same parts of the brain become active as in dancers themselves. You can say that within the brain there is a reflexive activity that enacts what is being observed. So an important part of any communication is to bring alive the brand, product and/or service, whether that is visually, verbally or physically. This imaging function within the brain/consciousness, often captured in the brief in the rather weak statement of 'tone of voice' becomes an important function of communication planning. And that is why this is the fourth element of CODAR.

Finally, we know there is a problem of believability and emotional trust in human relationships connected to personal experience. These are the barriers that people create for personal and psychological intimacy and trust. That comes out in the question: "Why should I believe this?" It also comes out in the question: "Can I let you into my space?" Is this the right restaurant (or lover) for me?

So the process by which you create thoughts, feelings and actions/intentions needs to engage with experience and also with individual reserve. So you have to ask, how can I help the person I'm communicating with to get what I want to communicate, which requires asking what help they might want (a job for research). This is why Help is the fifth and final dimension used in CODAR. People personalise their experience, thoughts, feelings and intentions, and also their doubts, concerns and uncertainty, in search for help in resolving them.

NSPCC success

NSPCC along with its various agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, DNA, HPI, Zed Media and WWAV has been successfully using CODAR for some time. I am very pleased that a recent research study amongst the charity and its agencies confirmed that it has made a real difference to the integration, quality and rigour of planning and capability for evaluation.

If you would like to learn how you can make a real difference to your integrated communication planning, give me a call or e-mail.

Angus Jenkinson

* Vakratsas, D and Ambler, T. (1999) How advertising works: what do we really know? Journal of Marketing, 63, (1, January), pp.26 – 43