Can Your Blog Pass the Emotive & Information Power Response Tests?

(There’s a test for those, didn’t you know?)

Since emotional response towards advertising plays an important part in building a strong brand, researchers at the University of Bath, working with Nielson, came up with two ways to score ads.

1. Information Power Score – measures what the consumer perceives as the value of the message
2. Emotive Power Score – measures if the emotion is going to change feelings about the brand

So why am I interested in this research? Well, at Say It For You, our business is blog marketing, which means connecting professional practitioners and business owners with prospective clients and customers. And, while I continually preach and teach that blog posts are not ads, but more like advertorials, establishing connections is the name of the game for both advertisers and content marketers.

Broadly speaking, the Bath studies showed, there are two types of emotive response: those based on empathy and those that respond to creativity. In an empathetic response, people feel emotionally closer to the brand; in a creative response, the people feel the brand is imaginative and ahead of the game. “It’s always best if can get both empathy and creative,” Dr. David Brandt writes.

The way that information is communicated has an important influence on how likely people are to believe that information. And for certain advertiser categories, Brandt points out, empathy is more important (food and toiletries, for example), while for other categories (electrical goods or computers, for example), creativity is more important.

Readers of business blog posts fall into two categories, according to Morgan Steward of Media Post Publications:

1. Deal seekers go online in search of bargains and discounts on products and services they already know and use. The effectiveness of the blog content writing, therefore, would be measured through the “information score”; the content would focus on the cost-effectiveness of your product or service and on any special deals or offers.
2. Enthusiasts seek information to support their hobbies, interests, and beliefs.
   Blogs aimed at this audience might focus on the “emotive score”. On the other hand, creative packaging, color and shape appeal to these customers, so the “creativity score” can be important as well.

   Can your blog pass the emotive and information power response tests?