There is a universal language that every person understands, one that needs no translation: Emotion. Even coming from different backgrounds, perspectives, and belief systems, the emotions we all experience are the same. They’re written on our faces and carved in our DNA as human beings.
Fear. Anger. Love. Grief. Joy. They’re all the physical, internal human experience of how we connect with what happens around us. These are the emotions that screenwriters, filmmakers, and marketers will leverage to connect with viewers.
Creating content – whether it’s movies, ads, trailers, or anything else – all relies on communicating a message or a sensation that viewers want to experience. Storytelling is our medium, but the emotive experience is the goal.
To facilitate laughter and joy, it’s the job of screenwriters and marketers to communicate something funny, silly, and enjoyable. To facilitate fright and fear, screenwriters and marketers have to work hard to communicate something suspenseful, frightening, and horrific. Even escapism-type stories intent to transport the viewer somewhere else and remove them from their immediate surroundings.
This is where the connection is sparked between what we see or read and our own personal experience.
While we’d want to carefully avoid the word “manipulation,” the concept is similar. I prefer the idea of stewarding or stewardship. This describes the process or act of managing or controlling something, in this case, viewers’ emotions.
The Psychology of Emotion
Modern psychology holds to four basic emotions: fear, anger, happiness, and sadness. To be happy or sad correlates with your physiological well-being, whereas to be fearful or angry relates to your basic safety needs. All four emotions exist on a spectrum with more or less nuance, depending on how they are triggered or stimulated.[1]
On one of those spectrums exists mirror neurons and empathy. This allows the viewer to experience similar emotions as someone else, to feel with them or on their behalf. This phenomenon is described as an immediate, compassionate participation in a shared response, which allows one to understand another’s feelings.[2]
This is the sensation that all marketers, copywriting services, screenwriters, and filmmakers strive to activate. Sharing in the experience of what is being consumed. Feeling what the characters or message is communicating.
This is why storytelling is such a powerful avenue for communication. It creates a connection based on shared emotions sparked by empathy. And it’s where all content creators at every level intersect.
Creating Emotional Story Arcs
I’m a bit of a pop culture void myself, but my team tells me all the must-see films that I simply can’t miss out on. One beloved emotional rollercoaster storyline from the cinematic world is Interstellar. This is the highly emotive and heart-wrenching tale of one man’s intergalactic journey to save his family and, thereby, the world.
You learn about the struggles of their current existence, how they’re out of options, and how radical action is the only path forward. It’s the screenwriter’s job to structure an emotional story arc that takes the viewer on a journey. This is the framework on which directors, producers, set designers, and actors all build their various skill sets to bring them to life.
As with Interstellar, Matthew McConaughey knew how to play his character based on the framework that was laid out. And his insane natural talent, lest we forget.
Marketers and content creators strive to achieve the same thing, though on a very different scale. Whereas a screenwriter’s efforts all culminate in one big-screen project aimed at a mass market who may watch it only once, a marketer’s efforts are splintered into an omnichannel distribution that connects with a multilayered audience again and again.
Screenwriters achieve this through backstory development, suspenseful scenarios, external conflicts, and revealing internal battles. Marketers and copywriters do this through future positioning, connecting desires to values, agitating pain points, and reminding viewers of the reasons behind their actions, or lack thereof.
One marketing example of psychological storytelling and emotional appeal is the recent comedic campaign put out earlier this year by 1Password, the password management software, in collaboration with Ryan Reynolds and his Welsh soccer – er, football – team, Wrexham. The story begins with the star reflecting on his celebrity status and how he needs to ensure his not-so-worldly players are safe online.
In true Reynolds fashion, there’s a twist: the team is way ahead of the game, already locked and loaded on the software. Surprised and a little deflated, Ryan moves on to the irrelevant topic of skin care. But the not-so-subtle message is that using their password-protecting software is a no-brainer, and the “why haven’t you downloaded it yet?” question that incites FOMO, or the fear of missing out.
While the final product may differ, how we all get where we’re going is very similar. We’re all leveraging the psychology of emotion to move the needle of empathy – experiencing the same emotion as what we see – for viewers, readers, and scrollers.
The Results of Emotive Storytelling
In the world of screenwriting and filmmaking, the results are a movie or TV show that audiences rush to the theater or their favorite streaming platform to see. In the world of marketing, it’s an advertising campaign that promotes a product or service people want to buy.
Both screenwriters and marketers are using the psychology of emotion to inspire action. To move the viewer from someone who merely consumes to someone who experiences. The audience may watch the movie trailer but have not truly experienced the movie itself until they watch it for themselves. The scroller may see the ad, but they cannot reap the benefits of the product until they make the purchase.
The result of strong storytelling sparks the viewer’s next move. It stirs up an emotion – be it fear, joy, FOMO, or excitement – and compels them to do something about it. It forces them to think about something in a new light.
Emotive storytelling changes people. It changes minds, ideas, emotions, and even paths.
Where Are We Going Next?
As the creators of stories and copywriters, marketers should invest time and energy into developing a better understanding of the screenwriting world to tell better stories. On the other side of the equation, screenwriters should dive into marketing and copywriting courses to better understand what stories and emotions best inspire action.
The obligation to create projects that inspire action and participation is squarely on the shoulders of all the writers out there. Whether for the big screen, the small screen, or the scroll screen, the wordsmiths are the creators of worlds and experiences.
The wordsmiths build a framework that evokes emotion and inspires viewers and readers everywhere. The wordsmiths in various roles, from screen and scriptwriting to copywriting, marketing, and fiction authors, are the creatives who build the connections that exist between print and film and the people who see them.
Emotion is the language we all understand. It’s how we continue to activate and develop empathy as people. It’s how we enjoy life. Keep creating!
Keep telling stories. Keep connecting. Keep offering a bridge between what’s at hand and what’s inside. Keep enhancing the human experience.
Over the past decade, Liz has worked as a copywriter and digital marketing executive for a multitude of companies from startups to and mid-sized businesses to working as the VP of marketing for award-winning, platinum-selling artists. Leveraging an understanding of the nuance of language in marketing, Liz founded Amplihigher, a content marketing and copywriting agency, designed to connect consumers to companies in a way that results in next-level brand expansion.
