“Vermajee, tell me something. During Navratri, we celebrate nine forms of Shakti. If brands had nine forms of emotion, would they know which one to worship?”
Vermajee smiled and raised his glass. “Most brands worship whichever emotion the latest campaign brief demands. The problem with brand emotions begins when every opportunity becomes a reason to change the brand’s dominant emotion. Today, they want consumers to laugh; tomorrow, to cry; and the day after, to feel patriotic. The brand team calls it relevance, topical, tactical and many such names. The consumer might simply call it inconsistency.”
That brought us to the Nava Rasa, the nine rasas associated with India’s classical aesthetic tradition, discussed in the Natya Shastra. The original text identifies eight rasas, with Shanta subsequently accepted as the ninth. Navratri and Nava Rasa are distinct traditions, but the festival reminds us that human responses are far richer than the limited vocabulary most brand briefs use.
Shringara (love), Hasya (humour), Karuna (compassion), Raudra (anger), Veera (courage), Bhayanaka (fear), Bibhatsa (disgust), Adbhuta (wonder), and Shanta (peace). For marketers, the nine rasas offer a useful vocabulary for understanding brand emotions and their role in consumer response.
The real question, however, is not how many emotions a brand can evoke, but which emotion it wants people to remember and which emotion it uses to move them to action.
“Take insurance,” Vermajee said. “Fear may make you consider the consequences of being unprotected, but reassurance is what you ultimately seek. The emotion that triggers action need not define the brand. That distinction is central to managing brand emotions strategically.”
We agreed that emotional consistency does not mean repeating the same mood in every advertisement. Humour can sell a serious proposition; anxiety can establish the need for reassurance; wonder can make innovation desirable. The test is whether the emotion serves the brand or merely makes the communication more entertaining.
“Here is the problem,” I said. “Every festival, sporting event, social cause and trending conversation arrives with its own emotional opportunity. Should a brand resist the temptation to join in, or learn to mix its rasas?”
Vermajee was quick to respond. “A brand that never changes its expression risks becoming irrelevant. A brand that changes its emotional character with every opportunity risks becoming unrecognisable. The trick is to change the performance without changing the protagonist.”
Consider Amul, whose topical advertising has long used wit and humour to comment on everything from politics to sport and popular culture. Its subjects change constantly, but the playful, pun-driven voice remains recognisable. Amul shows that a brand can survive on one emotion alone; more usefully, it shows that a consistent emotional signature can accommodate an enormous variety of occasions.
Perhaps that is the more realistic ambition. In a marketplace where attention is fleeting, and consumer moods change rapidly, no brand can reasonably claim exclusive ownership of one emotion. Yet it can establish one or two dominant emotional associations and allow other rasas to play supporting roles. The challenge is to know when an emotional detour strengthens the brand and when it simply chases attention.
“Remember,” Vermajee said, “if verbal is the nail and visual is the hammer, emotion is what holds the frame together. Without it, the communication may be beautifully crafted, but the brand has nothing holding it in the consumer’s memory.”
I added, “And if every campaign strikes a different emotional note, the consumer may hear the music but never recognise the musician.”
“Exactly,” he replied. “An emotion can win the moment; only a coherent emotional identity can earn the memory.”
As the Garba music grew louder, Vermajee left me with two questions every brand custodian, or, shall I say, Brand conductor, should answer: What dominant emotion does the brand want to own? And what emotion are you using to trigger the response you seek?
If the answers differ, connect them strategically. If there isn’t, the brand may be dancing to every tune without ever finding its own rhythm.
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