As humans, we excel in fooling ourselves into thinking that we are rational choice engines. We like to believe that the things we do and the decisions we make are fundamentally based on logic and reason – but this just isn’t the case.

Nobel Laureat and cognitive scientist, Daniel Kahneman, explores in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, the model of two distinctive modes of thought characteristic of human cognition. The first is automatic, almost instinctual, and heavily based on past experiences, while the second is slow and calculating, with the conscious employment of logic and rationality. This, along with a lifetime body of other work, proves to us all we are not in any way masters of our own decisions.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? Well, quite a bit. Understanding the central role emotion plays in decision-making can be the difference between an ad that captures attention, gets remembered and prompts action, or simply blends into the background noise of our daily lives.

Emotional decision-making

The two systems outlined in Kahneman’s book are but one eye-opening glimpse into the mechanics of human decision-making, and call into question how we like to think of ourselves. Behavioural scientists know that are brains are not like computers, they don’t weigh up the odds, calculating the best decision based on logical outcomes and reasoning, instead, they’re much more like that first mode of thought described by Kahneman – fast, instinctual and most importantly – emotional (“emptions” being a word we give to powerful instant reactions).

In fact, even deeper than this, our brains are exceptionally skilled at providing ex post facto rationale to support those emotional decisions we previously made. We aren’t even aware that this is what’s going on.