by Damian Grimling | Nov 6, 2021 | Sentimenti research
When sentiment analysis began to be used for marketing activities in the early 2000s, it opened up vast opportunities for the marketing and advertising industries. Understanding consumer sentiment allowed for better validation of actions and more precise targeting of target groups. Today, 20 years later, new doors are opening—rather than just measuring sentiment, we can now analyze emotions, and this offers even more benefits. What are they?
FROM THIS ARTICLE, YOU WILL LEARN: |
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What is the difference between sentiment and emotion? -
What is the difference between sentiment analysis and emotion analysis? -
How do the results of both algorithms look in practice? -
Emotion analysis is not only effective in content marketing -
Perspectives on the development of emotion analysis tools |
Differences Between Sentiment and Emotions: Full List of Emotions
First, let’s define sentiment and emotions—the most important differences arise at this basic level because sentiment and emotions are two distinct phenomena.
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- Sentiment is the state in which a person experiencing emotions can name what they are feeling, connect that experience with thoughts about it, and then make a conscious decision regarding the source of the stimulus. Sentiment, therefore, is the sum of physiological reactions (from the body) and cognitive processes triggered by the experience of emotions. Since it is a conscious state, it can be sustained by the person experiencing it. In general, sentiment is a broad mental attitude towards a particular experience.
- Emotions, on the other hand, are the physiological and, consequently, psychological brain responses to an external stimulus or an experience related to such a stimulus. The combination of the experience and the body’s reaction (hormonal activity) causes a short-lived and unconscious state, leading to specific actions such as fight, flight, freeze, awe, disgust, etc. What’s more—each emotion is tied to a different type of reaction, resulting in different behaviors.
As you can see, without experiencing emotions, you cannot enter a state of sentiment. Emotions operate at the lowest, behavioral level, while sentiment is their reflection, consideration, and evaluation by the person experiencing them. Emotions cause spontaneous reactions, while sentiment leads to conscious and controlled actions. The most significant difference: there are only eight basic emotions (according to Plutchik’s theory: joy, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, anticipation, and trust), which, when combined, form secondary, higher emotions that lead to the creation of feelings. In the case of sentiment, we are dealing only with positive and negative sentiment, sometimes also neutral.
Exploring Emotions: Media Monitoring vs. Sentitool – A Tool Comparison
Just as the phenomena of sentiment and emotions differ, so do the tools used to analyze them. These tools leverage advanced technologies such as neurolinguistic programming, machine learning, and other AI algorithms. Currently, in the Polish market for sentiment analysis in online content, several reputable companies exist, but in the field of emotion analysis, only one stands out as a true pioneer—Sentimenti. Below is a comparison of the general capabilities of sentiment and emotion analysis tools.
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examining the general tone of statements made by Internet users, article authors, etc. -
determine the user's impression and attitude after reading the text -
ease of processing and estimation of analysis results -
Useful for evaluating online brand mentions, social media management and customer communications, including complaint handling -
crisis communication support -
comparing consumer attitudes toward our own and competitors' products | -
to examine the instinctive reactions of Internet users and the intentions of the creators -
The ability to get to the emotions behind a particular sentiment and determine the future actions of those commenting -
Much greater range of information collected (8 emotions, sentiment analysis and emotional arousal) -
ability to work on huge groups of respondents -
assessment of consumer sentiment before and after the advertising campaign -
validation of marketing strategies -
monitoring emotions about the company in online mentions -
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comparing brand perceptions -
analysis of emotions associated with influencers, YouTubers, bloggers, etc. to accurately select a brand ambassador |
Conclusion: The common (even within the industry) usage of the terms sentiment analysis and emotion analysis is incorrect. Sentiment is a much narrower concept, indicating in practice only the tone of a statement and possibly the mood of the author. Emotion analysis, on the other hand, describes the level of individual emotions (providing a percentage result for eight components, as well as the type of sentiment and the level of emotional arousal); with this data, consumer reactions and behaviors can be predicted with high accuracy.
As you can see, this data is more detailed; its analysis is more challenging, but it is also more accurate and comprehensive. Sentimenti’s algorithm includes as many as 30,000 words and phrases collected from a group of 22,000 people. The algorithm itself was developed in collaboration with the Wrocław University of Science and Technology and the Brain Imaging Lab of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
How Do the Results of Both Algorithms Look in Practice?
Time for some practice! Take a look at the following analysis of a real review:
I will never buy anything from smelly V(…) again. I recently decided I didn’t want to buy tragic clothes from chain stores, so I bought from there, and the supposedly perfect condition item, without signs of wear, had a stain that was visible. The woman claims that when she sent it, the stain wasn’t there.
This review is authentic and taken directly from a portal. What can you read from it when measuring sentiment versus emotion?
Results: Anger – 70%, Fear – 45%, Anticipation – 24%, Surprise – 57%, Trust – 14%, Sadness – 60%, Disgust – 62%, Joy – 10%, Positive sentiment – 10%, Negative sentiment – 70%, Emotional arousal – 72%.
The comment comes from a disappointed customer who, instead of making a purchase from one of the popular boutiques, opted for what she considered higher-quality used clothes. The purchase turned out to be unsuccessful, and the item was stained despite being described as in good condition. The buyer is clearly upset (emotional arousal at 72%), angry (a high 70%), feeling disgust (62%) and sadness (60%)—as she expected a good purchase. Notice that the woman also exhibits a high level of surprise (57%) and fear (45%)—when you add the disgust result, you can understand that this is her physical reaction to the experience of being deceived.
Now look at the same review from a sentiment analysis perspective: you receive two results—negative (70%) and positive (10%). The negative sentiment is evident even without automatic analysis, given phrases like smelly, tragic, stain, woman. The phrases supposedly perfect condition and without signs of wear build the low positive sentiment score.
The key information, however, is hidden—the phrase smelly refers directly to the shopping platform, tragic to the quality of chain store clothes, and woman to the seller. The overall tone of the review is set by the epithets unrelated directly to the purchased item, yet the sentiment analysis result remains negative.
Conclusion: With percentage results for basic emotions and knowledge of the typical physiological reactions they correspond to, you can estimate consumer behavior in this situation. Anger is associated with an attack response (hence the comment on the portal), disgust and fear with flight, and sadness with freezing. The emotional consumer will likely switch to another platform or opt for in-person shopping. She will probably not use this platform again.
Emotion Analysis is Effective Beyond Content Marketing
You’ve just seen how sentiment and emotion analysis results are interpreted in a specific example, and what kind of insights you can gain from them. As you’ve likely noticed, emotion analysis is a far more comprehensive, complete solution tailored to customer needs. But are emotion analysis algorithms limited to marketing, PR, or customer service?
Definitely not. With the development of machine learning technology and the implementation of increasingly sophisticated AI algorithms, the possibilities of emotion analysis extend into other industries. Today, emotions can be analyzed, for example, to forecast stock market prices or investment opportunities in the cryptocurrency market.
Future Prospects for Emotion Analysis Tools
If the above information hasn’t convinced you of the superiority of emotion analysis over sentiment analysis, look at the development potential of the former. Artificial intelligence is already highly advanced. Today, AI is being implemented not only to study but also to create emotionally engaging content aimed at achieving set goals.
These goals include increasing conversion rates from marketing activities, acquiring more effective leads, or providing customer service tailored to consumer needs (including potential crisis situations and ways to avoid them). The latter goal significantly improves user experience, increasing customer loyalty to the brand, which, in turn, strengthens the brand’s position in the market. That’s the potential of this technology—sentiment analysis can’t do that.
by Sentimenti Team | Sep 30, 2021 | SentiBrand
The study of emotions contained in content is today eagerly used, among other things, to analyze and predict consumer behavior. No wonder. Reading the motivation of internet users helps to better define the target group of a given product or service and then facilitates more precise construction of marketing communication. One of the parameters that should be taken into account when analyzing the emotions contained in the text is emotional arousal. Why? What benefits do we get from it? Check it out in this article!
What should you know about emotional arousal to begin with? Let’s start with a definition. In a previous article, we pointed out that emotion is an experience and also an affective stimulus, causing an action to be taken.
One component of this experience is emotional arousal (arousal).
This arousal reflects the degree of activation of the central nervous system. It directly affects the way (intensity) of feeling a particular emotion. However, it is not a state that is always reflected in the dynamics of a particular person’s behavior. It can lead to increased liveliness, but it can also cause apparent calmness, indifference or even its withdrawal.
Interesting fact. The nature of the emotion experienced has no effect on the value of emotional arousal. Sadness, disgust, or joy can have the same arousal value.
Emotional arousal in terms of content emotion analysis means the level of intensity of a given reader’s emotions towards a particular event or information read. It can be zero, in which case we speak of indifference. It can also be measured and felt as strong: for example, excitement or agitation.
Emotional arousal is a state whose symptoms can be observed in the body. Noticeable physiological reactions include:
- elevated heart rate,
- more frequent and more intense heartbeat,
- accelerated breathing,
- increased perspiration,
- goose bumps on the skin,
- dilation of the pupils and accommodation of the eyes to see at a distance,
- dilation of blood vessels in the external genitalia.
These symptoms may be accompanied by other, less obvious visceral reactions, that is, reactions of internal organs:
- due to the activity of the adrenal glands, adrenaline is secreted into the blood,
- the liver releases glucose into the bloodstream,
- intestinal peristalsis is reduced and bronchial tubes dilated.
As you can see, this is atavism. The so-called reptilian brain is at work here. In the body, mobilization occurs, leading to an immediate reaction to the occurring changes. For example, in the case of fear it will be flight, and in the case of anger or rage – aggression, fighting.
Unlike sentiment analysis, emotion analysis can indicate the level of emotional arousal in statements or other types of content published by internet users. For analysts, communications professionals, marketers and even salespeople, this is a very important factor. Why?
Measuring arousal, sometimes called the temperature of an utterance, gives those measuring it the ability to determine the overall strength of all emotions. It additionally conveys two pieces of information:
- it indicates the severity of the tendency to perform the response attributed to a particular emotion,
- and, at the same time, it shows the magnitude of the obstacles that may block a person from taking a particular action.
The analyst thus gains knowledge of the person’s propensity to act. If, in addition, he knows what emotion is behind the statement, he will also know what action to expect. He will also learn about the extent of the blockages inhibiting the person. With knowledge of the emotions involved, he will be able to more easily determine whether it is an external obstacle or rather a mental block.
What do we gain by having our level of emotional arousal examined in conjunction with a given emotion?
First, we gain the ability to identify the emotional state that results from the content examined, in terms of its intensity
Thus, we distinguish between:
- mood – when the intensity of the emotion is low but can last for a long time,
- emotion – sudden and short-lived emotional states,
- affect – a sudden physiological state of short duration but high intensity, ending in passing and a phase of weariness.
Second, when combined with a given emotion (or compilation of emotions), the analysis will make it easier to determine the source of that emotion
Depending on the type of emotion, the arousal will be sensory or internal, visceral (i.e., aggregated due to the body’s biological imbalance, deprivation of needs, etc.).
And we are only talking about emotions in a primal, animal context! When we begin to operate with derivative, complex emotions, a more complicated and simultaneously more desirable picture will emerge. For we will enter into the so-called reasons of reason, emotions of a transgressive, reflexive character.
Their level and intensity may even give the researcher an idea about the system of values adhered to by the commentator, its violation or realization. It is probably not necessary to convince anyone about the importance of such data for their interpreter.
Third, and finally, the juxtaposition of emotion and arousal allows the analyst to estimate the impact of a given piece of information on an individual’s cognitive development
In what ways? First of all, we know that cognitive processes are connected to emotional processes. The latter affect cognitive processes by giving them a sui generis emotional coloration that stems from the emotions that we are experiencing.
The high intensity of a given emotion will therefore restrict cognitive processes, because these processes will be, as it were, filtered through the filter of the emotions experienced. However, positive stimulation (“reward” that introduces a positive feeling in the subject) improves the process, while the expectation of unpleasant consequences slows it down.
The analysis of primary and secondary emotions in combination with emotional arousal will allow the researcher to attribute specific actions to the results obtained. It will give him a specific picture of the structure of needs behind the analyzed statement. As a result, it will be possible to tailor a marketing message that is much more personalized. If we gather a sufficiently large group with similar results (i.e. similar needs), with such data we can begin designing marketing strategies.
Let’s proceed to test the knowledge described here in practice. As a basis for the analysis we will take comments and opinions from the Internet. They were scanned with SentiTool for the emotions they contain. Sentiment and the degree of emotional arousal were examined. We will see the relationship between emotional arousal and predicted action.
Example 1:
Panel prices drama – just like any other store. I will never again buy anything from the damn XX. This floor is crap, and the company that produces this crap is a huge failure.
Message analysis results:
- anger – 51%,
- fear – 31%,
- anticipation – 30%,
- surprise – 52%,
- trust – 20%,
- sadness – 45%,
- disgust – 42%,
- joy – 19%,
- positive sentiment – 18%,
- negative sentiment – 45%,
- excitement – 59%.
In the results obtained, the high scores of anger, disgust, sadness and surprise are immediately striking. However, these are obvious in a consumer disappointed with a purchase. These values are supported by a strong negative sentiment, which hints that this state will persist and can be nurtured in the way people harbor resentment.
The emotional arousal of the Internet user is high here and will certainly lead to impulsive actions. What are they? The anger factor (51%) may indicate a desire to take retaliation, probably in the form of leaving aggressive, unfavorable comments and opinions online and among people familiar with the author of the post in question.
However, the most important part of the statement is the author’s identification of the “guilty” of the whole situation and, at the same time, the one responsible for his emotional state. And it is … no, contrary to appearances, not the manufacturer of “crap and junk”, that is the company “great failure”. The culprit is a popular DIY store!
We are witnessing an interesting shift of aggression from the manufacturer to the distributor of floor panels. The reason for the transfer is the unattractive price of the purchased product. As a punishment, the customer threatens to give up shopping in this chain. It can be considered that the quality of the product in this statement is of secondary importance. The customer guessed what he was buying and probably had an internal agreement about not the best specification of the product, but he expected a much lower price.
How do we know this? He did some consumer research and compared prices in other stores, he probably checked opinions of other users about given panels. Finally, despite everything, he bought this particular product. The first two sentences of the internaut’s statement (out of three!) refer to the store’s activity, and only the last sentence refers to the low quality of the floor panels. Something tells us that if the author of the opinion had bought the panels in the promotion, the above entry would not have been written at all.
What about the threat of a chain boycott? This boycott will last with the consumer… until they need to make their next purchase. There are a limited number of players in the building and finishing products market, and the aforementioned market is well established and has the fourth largest distribution network in the country. The results of the emotion analysis are not so high in this case as to suggest abandoning the relatively convenient (and, paradoxically, price-competitive) market in favor of seeking similar merchandise in other chains.
Example 2:
Anything better than G… and their latest “toxic masculinity” anti-male campaign, spreading propaganda saying that whites are responsible for all the evil and hate in the world. I will never buy anything from this crappy company again.
Message analysis results:
- anger – 58%,
- fear – 43%,
- anticipation – 24%,
- surprise – 53%,
- trust – 13%,
- sadness – 52%,
- disgust – 50%,
- joy – 10%,
- positive sentiment – 10%,
- negative sentiment – 57%,
- emotional arousal – 64%.
In the message examined, we immediately see a contradiction. The high levels of anger, fear, surprise and sadness are a reflection not of the products themselves, but of the mission or idea that the concern represents. This mission does not agree with the commenting consumer’s vision of the world.
The man is filled with anger (58%). He had largely identified the company with masculinity and suddenly this image began to change. This thesis is supported by high rates of surprise (53%) and fear (43%).
Fear, however, reveals something more to us. It appears because of the blow to the consumer’s fundamental values, which are hidden in the words: whites are responsible for all the evil and hatred in the world. What we get is an image of a conservative person who will not necessarily be appealed to with facts, but who will not mince words when it comes to defending his or her rights or values.
What action can such a consumer take? Anger combined with fear is an explosive mixture – with increased arousal, it can and will lead confidently to an attack. After all, the first step was to post the comment in question. There are bound to be other posts: people with high levels of anxiety are closed to change and are very aggressive in public discussions that undermine their higher values.
Such a person will opt for a consumer boycott (arousal 64%), although we are not sure they will persist in it. Why, you ask? The commentary begins by saying that the campaign is anti-male, showing the toxicity of masculinity. But all the anger focuses on the message of white guilt for the evils of this world. This consumer may nevertheless return to the brand’s products in some time, because he is used to them. He is, after all, masculine.
Example 3:
Irrigation of our greenery is important. At this point I too am going to buy a rotary sprinkler and have already seen several models in the store.
Message Analysis Results:
- anger – 16%,
- fear – 15%,
- anticipation – 41%,
- surprise – 40%,
- trust – 34%,
- sadness – 19%,
- disgust – 13%,
- joy – 35%,
- positive sentiment – 37%,
- negative sentiment – 6%,
- emotional arousal – 48%.
In contrast, the text to be analyzed is seemingly unemotional, neutral. The results of expectation, surprise and trust stand out the most, supported by a not inconsiderable (48%) arousal factor.
What do these results say? The person who left the comment is in the process of buying the product. Heightened anticipation (41%) combined with joy (35%) indicates that she is somewhat excited about the search, checking out the available options and looking out for the optimal offer (again, anticipation).
She is also surprised (40%) but still not frightened (15%) by the number of solutions available on the market. She believes she will find the right device (confidence – 34%). Agitation indicates an advanced process that is likely to end in a purchase.
The statement does not contain many details. You can see from its shape that it is a response to a comment from another person looking for such a product. It starts with a truism and, after a slightly stylistically convoluted construction, quickly moves on to the substance – a declaration of a common goal of the search. Now it is enough to add a link to the relevant product to the entry and… we have a typical whisperer’s comment.
If you would like to know, practitioners of whisper marketing, how your work looks like from the point of view of the study of emotions by artificial intelligence, it looks like this.
Example 4:
I bought such a decanter for my father and am eminently pleased. It is so beautiful that I myself gladly reach for it sometimes just to admire it. Lovely!
Message Analysis Results:
- anger – 12%,
- fear – 14%,
- anticipation – 61%,
- surprise – 50%,
- trust – 65%,
- sadness – 12%,
- disgust – 12%,
- joy – 72%,
- positive sentiment – 75%,
- negative sentiment – 1%,
- emotional arousal – 72%.
The statement is made by an extremely satisfied consumer who chose the product as a gift for his father. We will not find out whether the gift was to the liking of the recipient. Probably neither does the commentator himself. As evidence we have high expectation supported by surprise at 50% and slightly elevated indices of anger, sadness and fear. For the same reasons, we also don’t know if the gift performs well as a decanter.
What we do know is that the purchaser himself certainly enjoyed the purchase. He exalts the beauty of the product, describes holding it in his hands, and we sense the desire to repeat this action. Such emotional state of the commentator towards the product will last – this thesis is supported by our high positive sentiment (75%).
The arousal factor in such conditions can mean a desire to return to the store and buy the same product. Well, unless the son finally gets up the courage to ask his father what he thinks of the gift. There is a chance that he will get this decanter for himself…
The analysis of the comments described above is detailed, almost meticulous. So you may be tempted to respond: This is impractical! What about processing large amounts of data? After all, in order to prepare the communication strategy, monitor the brand image in the network, social listening, advertising campaign, etc. we will need thousands of mentions. How to deal with them?
It’s simple – the analysis of emotions contained in the content is automated. Content is analyzed by AI algorithms operating on the basis of deep neural networks. All mentions or posts are in turn categorized in such a way that a person starting to analyze the data has a simplified task. In addition, the analysis tools used today can be calibrated to the needs of a specific task or use selected classification systems.
So if you need to take your work to the next level with data analysis for marketing, advertising or communication projects, consider analyzing emotions in content.
by Igor Starczak | Sep 30, 2021 | SentiBrand
In marketing, advertising and customer communication, negative emotions tend to be overlooked. No wonder. Companies, brand owners or agencies – everyone prefers to know what positively attaches customers to a brand or product, what customers have a good experience, an experience, what finally makes a consumer a customer and why they return to buy later. Sales are what counts! But from a research perspective, negative emotions are valuable.
Analyzing negative emotions is important from the brand’s point of view, to say the least. Suppose a product sells badly, or an advertising campaign is not successful. Then, by studying the emotions of customers, you can find out what they feel and how this translates into the perception of the product or campaign. Today we are talking about why it is worthwhile to study negative emotions in marketing and communications as well.
At the outset, let’s clarify beyond a shadow of a doubt: we will treat the phrase “negative emotions” in this article exclusively as a key word (and even a crowbar word!). All emotions that arise in us are necessary, and all of them also have their concrete consequences in action, so they are positive. By negative emotions we will mean here those whose common social perception has a contrasting connotation opposite to concepts like joy, surprise, or admiration.
Among the eight basic emotions (as in previous articles – we talk about them in the context of Plutchik’s theory), those having a negative or rather unpleasant to feel context include sadness, anger, fear, and disgust.
Sadness
It is an emotion of loss. It will appear, for example, in a situation of loss of an important person, loss of material resources, inability to achieve a goal set for oneself or to satisfy a particular need. It is usually accompanied by other unpleasant emotions, sensations, and reactions from the body.
Sadness is one of the most essential human emotions for the reason that without it it is impossible… to feel joy. It also indicates what is significant to a person and can be a motivating factor to transform this emotion into action and achieve the desired goal. Related behaviors to sadness include passivity, numbness, isolation, surrender, and self-criticism.
Anger
This is an emotion that people are very much afraid of. At the same time, however, it is the one that in a crisis gives a person the most energy and motivation to act. Anger initiates fight or flight. It builds tension and alertness, causes the release of adrenaline – so it corresponds to the physiological response to stress.
Anger is a signal of disagreement and a response to threats. It appears when boundaries are violated and when needs are not met. It can lead to impulsive confrontation and even aggression against the cause of the emotion. However, it can be and directed at the feeler himself or be aggregated into sadness or a range of other emotions.
Fear
It is a reaction to danger. It often occurs with anger, and its intensity increases with the level of danger. It can sometimes turn into anxiety. Fear is a powerful motivator for action. It appears when there is a threat to, for example, health, life, possessions, when comparing the current situation to an analogous one in the past, when recalling a difficult situation, or when witnessing an event in which someone is being harmed.
Fear can activate even in the face of thoughts or imaginings. Behaviors of a person in fear include excessive focus on threatening factors, narrowing of attention, distraction, sometimes loss of self-control.
Disgust
It is an emotion of a warning nature: It informs about health and life threats, such as poisoned or stale food, dangerous plants and animals, contagiously ill people, etc. Repulsion can activate in unpleasant, rejecting situations. We won’t list here specific examples of when it occurs, so as not to trigger a revulsion reflex in readers!
Planning communications, marketing and advertising campaigns or customer service cannot be unsupported by the emotions of the audience. Yet, as we mentioned at the beginning of the article, emotions with negative overtones are usually consistently overlooked in such activities.
Wrongly. With such an approach, we lose the rich palette of emotions (both primary and secondary) that help us evaluate the feelings, attitudes, and reactions of some target audience of our activities. And after all, these activities do not bring only positive effects and associations. After all, both positive and negative emotions can be excellent catalysts for action in marketing communications.
And – more importantly – particular negative emotions entail specific behavioral reactions from consumers, which a marketer or a public relations officer should anticipate in order to take countermeasures in advance.
These reactions are primarily:
- brand detachment,
- brand switching,
- negative PTO,
- complaints and claims.
What opportunities does emotion analysis offer in this regard?
By checking negative reactions (e.g., in social media comments, under articles, products, statements in forums, etc.), we can define and outline the space where people with certain prejudices or using negative stereotypes and heuristics will be found. Through emotion analysis, we will estimate their percentage and be able to correct our communication in the future, which will improve its effectiveness.
Using emotion analysis in text (a step further than just sentiment analysis), we can also see what kind of negative emotions our audience feels. Are they anger, fear and sadness, or rather more complex, multi-layered emotions.
Here again, let’s emphasize the superiority of emotion analysis over sentiment analysis. Consumers feeling anger, disgust, or sadness will be classified as feeling negative sentiment. However, emotion analysis will indicate that consumers feeling sadness will show a tendency to withdraw and be inactive. Meanwhile, those feeling anger will rather confront and try to remove the cause of their anger.
This is an important piece of information. After all, negative emotions can be harnessed to marketing and advertising efforts in such a case, provided, however, that the brand applying such a procedure hastens a solution that brings relief. One just has to remember not to overdo it with these negative emotions. When consumers are unsure of how the brand intends to solve their tension – they will leave.
Now let’s look at the different emotions in terms of their impact on the relationship with a particular brand or product.
Anger towards the brand and the behaviors that manifest it
Anger can be shown by consumers through indignation, irritation or resentment in varying degrees. Such a state can manifest itself when, for example, a brand strikes at the principals of its audience, when its actions are overly pushy or provocative. Anger will cause frustrated customers to become active. It is also an emotion that stimulates taking action to find a solution on one’s own to neutralize this emotion.
Customer anger is often caused by product failure or other situations where the company is clearly to blame. Customers often get angry when a product fails them or they experience other problems that are clearly the company’s fault. And even more so when it is easy to prove its responsibility for causing the defect. In this case, the reaction of consumers will be to file complaints, write grievances, etc. In addition, they will show their dissatisfaction by spreading negative opinions about the company (negative WOM). Finally, they will be eager to confront the company in the form of protests, boycotts, etc.
Interestingly, in the so-called cross, that is, the combination of felt primary emotions, anger is not infrequently accompanied by shame, for example, in the form of a sense of humiliation. A simple mechanism is at work here: the manifestation of anger will occur due to embarrassment or humiliation precisely. It is worth knowing that in such a situation, the behavioral reactions of both emotions will be very similar to each other.
Shame is also an emotion whose manifestation will occur when the consumer experiences inconvenience due to his own interaction towards a particular brand. Under such circumstances, consumer behavior may steer toward re-building a relationship with the brand, but already on a different basis. This relationship is definitely not going to occur in the manifestation of sadness, where a passive attitude will prevail.
Disgust – what it manifests itself as
This negative emotion will arise when a brand strikes at consumers’ core values, e.g., violates labor rights, uses reprehensible market practices, conducts environmental robbery, tests products on animals, etc. Consumers’ response to feeling revulsion will definitely be to switch to competing brands (brand switching). Negative WOM (word of mouth) can also often be observed. Manifestations of disgust can also be aggressive actions directed against the brand, such as organizing protests and boycotts.
Fear – how consumers who feel it react
It is associated with feelings of anxiety, a state of insecurity and insecurity. Customers feel fear when they perceive something in a brand or product that disturbs their aforementioned sense of security. This feeling, even subjective, will, over time, project negatively on the brand that the consumer feels threatens him.
Fear is absolutely a stimulant for action. Unlike anger, however, the action taken by customers is not to attack the source of frustration, but to run away from it and avoid an unpleasant confrontation. And this is what happens to brands that, in the opinion of customers, for example, pursue overly aggressive marketing policies – consumers avoid confronting them.
As a result, they develop attitudes such as reluctance to try a new product or use the company’s services in general (brand detachment). On the other hand, when they need a product with certain parameters, however, they may initiate a switch to a competing brand (brand switching).
Sadness and its manifestations in behavior
Sadness (and all its shades) is an emotion characterized by directing energy inward, into oneself (as is anger). Saddened consumers withdraw from interactions with brands and – often – from public space (including social media) in general. In consumers’ actions, sadness tends to be reflected in moving to a competing company and choosing an analogous product or service.
Sadness typically manifests itself jointly with fear because the behavioral reactions in both cases are similar. Causing withdrawal and passivity, sadness has the same effects for the brand as fear, the result of which is a flight from the relationship. Sadness, however, will not induce actions besides severing the relationship with the brand (and possibly brand switching), while fear can also initiate negative comments, filing complaints, writing complaints, denunciations, etc.
So, what is it that can consequently trigger consumer reactions toward a brand? There are several factors, such as:
- an inappropriate name or an annoying advertising slogan,
- excessive focus on one target group and preparation of advertising activities with only them in mind, resulting in the inability of others to identify with the brand,
- advertising narrative that is incompatible with reality,
- outdated, almost old-fashioned ideas for advertising campaigns,
- unpleasant impressions caused by direct contact with the point of sale or product,
- the company’s pursuit of a negatively perceived policy.
A consumer’s dissatisfaction with a brand policy most often leads to his expression of anger. The reason is usually the company’s lack of response or a response that is inappropriate from that person’s perspective. These factors cause an escalation of tension, resulting again in anger or even hatred.
Anger and dissatisfaction are commonly experienced negative emotions by customers towards a particular brand
Having a high power of affective action, these emotions cause a reaction in various forms. Therefore, from the point of view of companies, it is important to analyze one’s own actions in terms of the emotions that will be triggered in consumers. After all, by analyzing emotions, one can try to stop the angry and disgruntled from showing aggression. As a result, you can make sure they don’t file complaints and grievances, spread negative information or, finally, leave for a company that is less frustrating and offers analogous products or services.
The most common consequences of consumers’ negative emotions are that they abandon the brand in question and move on to a competitor, and spread negative information. For these people, it is much easier, less stressful and requires less effort than even filling out a complaint form and sending it to the relevant unit of the company.
In such a situation, the company has to face loss of profits, a drop in sales and a decrease in the group of customers for its products. Moreover, it basically knows nothing about the reasons for such behavior of existing customers. If only for this reason, emotion analysis with a focus on negative emotions is so recommendable.
But that’s not all. Negative emotions carry a range of information that can be used in communications, advertising and marketing. Knowing the reasons for the occurrence of such emotions in their audience, a company, or brand can correct its policy in a given area, but also take up the fight to improve its position in the market.
How? Simply diagnose the negative emotions of your product’s target audience, but in the context of competing brands. Then you can use them to:
- make consumers more permanently attached to their brand (show the flaws of the competition to your customers),
- reducing brand switching,
- targeting your competitors’ audiences more effectively.
In marketing and advertising, brands even use strategies based on constructing activities that arouse strictly negative emotions
Of course, the assumption is that as soon as they are aroused, the recipients will be provided with a feeling of relief. Examples of this are most often found in social campaigns.
by Agnieszka Czoska | Apr 9, 2020 | Sentimenti research
Dr Jan Kocoń is a natural language engineer and the person behind the machine learning process within SentiTool, our solution for analyzing emotions in the text. Dr Kocoń coordinates the work of the linguistics team, integrates individual elements of the tool, and works closely with the IT team.
If you have to describe Sentimenti and the tools to anybody, what would you say first?
Sentimenti is a project meant to analyze emotions hidden in the text. Unlike competitive solutions that recognize the overtones of the text only (positive, neutral or negative), our tools manage to understand the text, assign specific meanings to the words in the text and name the certain emotions people feel about them. These emotions, in turn, provide the knowledge base for a machine learning mechanism that automatically recognizes emotions at the level of sentences and the whole text.
What does it mean that we analyse emotions in the text?
In the research carried out in our project we adapted the Plutchik model. It includes eight basic emotions: joy, sadness, trust, repulsion, expectation, fear, surprise and anger. We are able to estimate to what extent these emotions are expressed in the text.
How do we know what emotions people feel?
The knowledge base that helps our project includes more than 30.000 meanings of words, for which 20.000 unique respondents assign ratings for overtones and emotions. We are talking about “meanings” and not “words” on purpose, because words are ambiguous; for example “dark” means something different in “dark blue” or “dark people” and only in the latter case it carries emotions. Each meaning will ultimately receive 50 marks from different people. This allows us to know what feelings are evoked by certain meanings in the text. However, the emotion of the text is not a simple summation of the emotions assigned to the meanings in the text...
What else makes the emotion analysis tools in the text work?
Two things come to us to help. The first one is our gargantuan database of opinions. It came with associated overtones, derived from different areas: travel, medicine, products, services and more. We have over 10 millions of such texts in our database, which is an excellent source of information about the general feeling of the author. However, in order to find out what emotions a given text evokes in the reader, we also conduct our own research, analogous to research on single meanings.
This time the subject of these studies is the texts. The respondents attribute basic emotions to them, exactly the same way as they do with meanings of the words.
The second pillar of our Sentimenti tool is a combination of various machine learning methods. Experts in natural language processing provide us with tools for text analysis at the syntactic and semantic level, additionally they create rules for the analysis of meanings in context such as: negation, conjecture, weakening or strengthening of the overtones, etc. This is an additional help for automatic methods, such as deep neural networks, which are used to make the right conclusions about the emotions in the measured text.
What do you think automatic emotion analysis can be useful for?
Ultimately, I see many applications for our tools. The very first area that comes to my mind would be the marketing, or, more precisely, display advertising. This certain area covers the market of advertisements displayed in the context of web articles and is matching them with the emotions that the text of the publication evokes in readers. For example, in a sad text there could be an advertisement of an insurance company, and in a merry, joyful text there could be an advertisement for a trip.
Another area that we could cover is brand monitoring, i.e. analyzing how companies’ customers write on the Internet about a given company, its products and what emotions accompany them. Another interesting area could be sorting customers’ email complaints against the emotions contained in them, detecting conflicts arising in employee correspondence, detecting upcoming crises in Social Media, and even the possibility of diagnosing mental illnesses – the potential of Sentimenti tools is really huge!
What else do you plan to do in Sentimenti?
So far, there is a prototype ready with a simple text analysis on the level of meanings with an overtone analysis using our huge opinion resources. Currently in the Sentimenti team in Wroclaw I am managing to build a machine learning mechanism. It will make it possible to aggregate both information from the meaning knowledge base and information from the natural language processing stream. We are constantly receiving new data about the feelings of people reading certain texts, which are our teaching collection. The more data we gather, the better the quality of the tool there is.
by Sentimenti Team | Jun 6, 2019 | SentiBrand
Emotywne pozycjonowanie reklam, czyli targetowanie reklam wg emocji od niedawna nabrało nowego wymiaru. Okazało się, że komunikat można oprzeć nie tylko o kontekst, analizę ruchu na stronie, badania demograficzne, płeć i wiek ankietowanych, ale po dane sięgnąć też niemal w głąb ich serc. Jak to możliwe? Wystarczy rozpoznać ich emocje.
Emotional ad positioning and example: New York Times
In 2018, the New York Times conducted a study on the emotions of its readers. This was based on self-learning algorithms and combined with an analysis of feedback collected from readers about how they felt after reading the content of specific articles. The result of this research was an emotion prediction tool that indicates joy, sadness, hope, and 15 other emotions in readers, among others.
Not content to let this tool predict the emotions that NYT readers might potentially experience while reading future articles, the company went straight to selling advertising space. It was offered to owners of products with emotional character close to the emotions contained in the given articles. The possibilities turned out to be impressive: the tool made it possible to examine and create the emotional content of a given article and to better match the marketing message to it.
Marketing content so emotionally targeted and appropriately placed among other content achieved up to 80% better results than classic behavioural targeting (on average by 40%). The tool even made it possible to separate content with negative or disturbing undertones, so as not to add advertising messages that might fit the content or the reader’s profile, but are completely inconsistent with the tone of the text: New York Times.
Emotion targeting – emotional ads: perspectives
The agorithm can be applied not only to the articles contained on this site, but also to news and publications of other types. Therefore, it opened a whole new field for campaign creators. This resulted in 50 campaigns and over 30 million collected feelings, sentiments and emotions. Advertising messages were usually placed next to entertainment or corporate social responsibility content.
Interestingly, similar research was conducted in other editorial offices, including USA Today and The Daily Beast. The analysis was based on phrases (keywords) and emotions related to their meanings, and an attempt to answer the question of what mood current readers of a given text are in based on behavioral analysis of their actions on the website and frequency of returning to specific, emotionally charged content.
USA Today’s research has shown that readers don’t limit themselves to positive news, but read everything. This means you can target your message to them not only when the context is similar to the rest of the content, but also when readers are in a similar mood to the context of the content. Therefore, such a method allows you to more effectively create content for better communication of brands.
The Daily Beast, on the other hand, instead of trying to guess moods, indicates where on the site readers will spend the most time; in these popular places it tries to contextually place the marketing message. All based on positive emotions and negative emotions in advertising.
The future of the advertising market?
The described activities based on data analysis, algorithms and artificial intelligence are beginning to be the future of the advertising and public relations market. How do the market of ordering parties perceive these new solutions? It would seem that with such precise tools for targeting recipients, there is no need to worry about anything else. And yet opinions are divided.
According to some experts, basing a campaign solely on such “bought emotionality” is one-dimensional, restricts and narrows the field of activity and should therefore be associated with other methods of communication. On the other hand, it is an excellent solution for companies looking for safe solutions, making their marketing message more precise and targeting the most determined customers.
Sentimenti and emotional advertising. Identifying emotions in online advertising
Since the New York Times includes emotion ad positioning on its pages, the solution must work and be effective. Positive and negative emotions are taken into account. Is it possible to apply similar mechanisms in Polish?
Until now, this was not at all obvious. Algorithms for automatic processing of our language have been improved to such an extent that they are great for text analysis. But what about the emotions expressed in them? Until now there was no database of words, phrases or even whole texts written in Polish.
That is why the Sentimenti team created it. The database was created in the course of research we talk about on the blog and at academic conferences. It turned out that with good data it is possible to create an effective system of sentiment and emotion analysis and with it – ad positioning.
Interia Emotions – different emotions, one goal
We are now at a similar stage to where the New York Times was about a year ago. We have an application that efficiently analyzes text and the emotions it contains. We have started cooperation with Interia portal – we are creating an emotional map of its thematic services. From here it is only one step closer to taking the overtones of an article into account in ad positioning.
What is very important, emotive ad positioning does not mean additional duties for journalists. We will not tell anyone what emotions to express, because in practice each emotion creates an appropriate environment for ads. Text has a sad meaning? It is best to place an ad with ecological overtones. It expresses fear? This is a good context for pairing the article with an ad for insurance or dietary supplements.
The next step of the Interia Emotions project will be to investigate how exactly emotions in text react with ads. Therefore, when we check this, emotive and effective ad positioning will become a fact. Such a tool will certainly prove useful. Ads positioned based on the content of articles (rather than tracking the activity of Internet users) are less irritating for them.
