**By Julie Pitta Article
“Companies in the B2B market, however, have been reluctant to adopt emotional marketing tactics, Stanford’s Shiv said. Instead, most have taken a traditional approach centered on price/performance benefits of products or services. “There has been this feeling that emotional marketing is all fluff,” Shiv explained. “The belief is that if a product or a service provides a clear benefit and is well-priced, it will sell.”
But Shiv’s research found that emotional can play an important role in B2B purchasing decisions–as great as practical concerns such as price and performance. “It turns out that the overriding emotion that motivates B2B purchases is anxiety,” he said. “It’s the anxiety that comes with fear of making a mistake.” Remember the old adage, ‘You’ll never be fired for buying IBM?’ Business buyers are susceptible to marketing pitches that allay those fears.
Apple Computer proved that even a product as geeky as a personal computer could benefit from emotional marketing. Apple burst onto the technology scene in the early 1980s with products that set the bar for coolness in an industry that was anything but.” – Article
