Is your marketing more effective when people are happy?

“Advertising is about one thing—happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing, it’s OK…You are OK.”

Don Draper, Mad Men, Series 1: Episode 1, 31:56–32:22

How do you reassure your customers they’re OK? How do you make them feel happy? Do you even know how they’re feeling about your offering, brand, life in general? 

Why should you care? Because research demonstrates that your clients’ mood influences their responses to your marketing and the likelihood of them clicking ‘buy’. 

This blog post explores how we know that happier, more relaxed people are more likely to remember your content, like what they see, and make a purchase—even when there’s a bit of risk involved. 

ScoreApp helps you create engaging experiences that leave prospects feeling good and more likely to take action. And gives you the opportunity to get into their deeper emotions within a safe, familiar format. Say hello to an absolute goldmine of invaluable data insights!

Why mood matters in marketing

You’ve nailed your ideal customer personas. You know exactly where and when your prospects will be online. You’ve got data-backed insights into their pain points and aspirations. Amazing! 

Now it’s time to add a deeper layer of customer knowledge and consider how your customers feel when they meet your brand. Research shows that emotional state directly affects consumer decision-making. People are more receptive, trusting, and impulsive when they’re in a positive mood.

Let’s see how you can use established research findings to boost engagement and, ultimately, sales. 

How consumer mood shapes marketing effectiveness

We’re going to look at three areas where customer mood directly affects your marketing effectiveness: Getting noticed, being liked, and personalization. Remarkable work has been done in this field of buyer psychology, and it’s just good sense to apply these findings to your strategies.  

Mood and our capacity for noticing

Before anyone can buy from you, they need to know you exist. But how often do you notice the carefully considered marketing efforts of other companies? What stops you from really seeing them? 

It feels like we know that certain situations make us all less likely to notice:

• Being in a rush: You’re just focused on getting where you’re going.
• Feeling stressed: You’re in your head, trying to unravel problems.
• Being in a bad mood: You’re too busy with your emotions to notice anything else.

But what do we really know about this connection between attention and mood? And how does this impact on our work as marketers?

At the University of Amsterdam in 2007, Fred Bronner did some interesting research into the link between people’s mood and their capacity for noticing adverts. 

Research findings

Bronner asked 1,287 participants to flick through a newspaper. He then asked them about the adverts they noticed, their stress levels, and the mood they were in. 

Results:

• People who strongly agreed that their day “had gone super” remembered 46% of the ads.
• Those who strongly disagreed with this statement only recalled 26% of the ads.
• People feeling relaxed remembered 56%.
• Participants who felt stressed only remembered 36%.

That’s pretty distinctive proof that happy, relaxed people are more likely to notice your adverts. Of course this triggers a whole other set of interesting questions:

• When is your audience at their most chilled out?
• What are they doing—in real life and online—at this time? 
• Does a marketing push on a weekend really make sense for your brand and offering? 
• Are you dynamic enough to pivot to changing and running a campaign when there’s unexpected sunshine? A known mood-lifter. Would this be successful for your product or service?

This research is important to your marketing strategy because it proves the link between how customers are feeling and how likely they are to remember your efforts. 

For example, you may know that a large section of your audience uses the London Underground to get to work. It’s unlikely that anyone is feeling relaxed or happy on this journey. So, is investing in ads in Tube carriages likely to be worth it, even though you have a captive audience? It’s definitely worth doing specific market research before you invest in a whole campaign. Pausing to consider how your audience feels in a particular situation could save you a fortune.

I don’t just want you to see me, I want you to like me 

We don’t just want our customers to remember our brand. We want them to like what they see! In 2016, Richard Shotton and Laura Maclean (now Laura May) investigated the impact of mood on how much people liked an ad—going a step beyond memorability. 

Research findings

They showed 2,035 people an ad and asked them to rate its likeability. They also asked them to rate their mood, at that moment, on a scale of miserable to very happy. 

Results

• 21% of happy participants, who rated themselves 7+ on the scale, liked the ad.
• 13% of unhappy people, who rated themselves -6 on the scale, liked it.

Shotton: “When we cut the ratings of the ad according to the mood of the participants there was a clear pattern. Happy participants rated the ad 62% higher than the grumpy ones.”

More research that found the similar connections: 

Hearst commissioned research into positivity from Theobalds Road Consulting. 

Research findings: 

• 77% people took some kind of action (‘after consuming media’) when they had a positive mindset.  
• 22% less people (only 63%) with more negative feelings took any action.
• People in a positive frame of mind are 90% more likely to try something new and 35% more likely to buy an advertised product.
• Those feeling positive react with an 18% increase in brand favorability. This plummets to 3% for those in a negative mindset. 

In essence, happier, less stressed people are more likely to buy! 

Let’s get personal…

A universally acknowledged internet truth is, whatever you feel about something, someone else will feel the exact opposite (and they’ll be sure to let you know!). Which is why using emotions in your marketing is trickier than it first appears. 

You can’t rely on everyone in your audience to feel happy or relaxed by the same thing. Some people love hot, sunny days. Others can’t wait for nightfall. Some people relax over the weekend. Others find their home lives more stressful than the office. 

So, can you actually personalize these ideas that connect buying behaviors with mood? Let’s dig into a couple of possible nuances…

Matching energy, not just ‘make them happy’

In 2015, Keith Wilcox, Professor of Marketing at Columbia Business School, tested his theory about advert and mood congruence. 142 participants watched a clip of a documentary about Einstein, or a highly emotive moment from the film ‘The Champ.’ This was followed by one of two adverts, with either moderate or high energy. 

The results (from this and five other studies)

• People who watched the sad clip were 50% more responsive to an ad with moderate energy, compared to one with high energy. 
• Wilcox: “When you feel low or sad, ads that are high energy are difficult to watch. So, you spend less time watching, and the ad is less effective.”

This conclusion implies that there’s power in pitching the tone of your marketing to match the mood of your customer—a much more nuanced approach to customer journey mapping.

Is your mouse revealing your mood? 

Ever noticed how the way you use your mouse changes, depending on how you’re feeling? Research into cursor behavior reveals just how much our digital body language says about our mood. 

It’s all in the subtle shifts: how fast you move your mouse, how often you hesitate, or how directly you click. And this offers real-time insights into emotions such as stress, confidence, or frustration. It’s an emerging field that’s helping businesses better understand user experience and behavior, paving the way for simple cursor movements to increase personalization according to mood. 

Research findings

In 2015, Associate Professor Jeff Jenkins at Brigham Young University organized a series of experiments to test the correlation between mood and mouse movement. He discovered that people feeling more negative emotions move the cursor more slowly, and with jagged movements. 

Results

Jenkins: “Using this technology, websites will no longer be dumb. Websites can go beyond just presenting information, but they can sense you. They can understand not just what you’re providing, but what you’re feeling…

“Traditionally it has been very difficult to pinpoint when a user becomes frustrated, leading them to not come back to a site. Being able to sense a negative emotional response, we can adjust the website experience to eliminate stress or to offer help.”

Imagine being able to read the mood of all your users, on different screens, just by the way they’re moving their cursors!

Tl;dr: What does the science behind emotion and decision-making tell businesses? 

A roundup of what we know about this area of buyer psychology so far:

• Positive customer emotions lead to: Increased attention to ads, them being more likely to remember your brand messages, and more likely to click ‘buy’.
  
• Customers in a negative mood are: More critical and skeptical of marketing messages, less likely to trust your brand promises, less likely to make a purchase.

What does this mean for your business? 

Positive emotions don’t just make people feel good, they encourage them to take action. For you, this means happy customers are more likely to:

• Click on ads, open emails, and interact with content
• Trust recommendations and testimonials
• Complete purchases with less hesitation, even when it’s a brand-new thing.

So, what can you do to put your customers in a good mood? Using the research, you can meet your audience where they are emotionally and, hopefully, make them feel better. 

The role of content in creating a positive mood

You need to create content that’s authentic to your industry and brand. And this must be the core of your content creation. You need to look at these examples through the lens of your business goals, brand philosophy, industry norms, and customer perspective. Not all types of content are appropriate for every context, so define yours before you start setting the mood. 

Some effective strategies to create a positive mood in marketing (+ examples)

• Humorous ads: Make ’em laugh! Brands such as Old Spice, Dollar Shave Club, and Wendy’s use humor to entertain and engage their audience and make their messaging more memorable.
  
• Uplifting stories: Give all the feels. Campaigns that highlight personal success, community impact, or inspiring journeys—Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ ads featuring athlete stories, or Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign.
  
• Interactive content: Quizzes, polls, and gamified experiences that make engagement fun and rewarding. Things like Spotify Wrapped put the focus on everyone’s favorite topic—themselves! ScoreApp quizzes give more sophisticated rewards with personalized, actionable reports. 

• Bright and energetic visuals: Color, music, and imagery that evoke excitement, happiness, or positivity. Coca-Cola’s red branding and upbeat ads create an association with joy and togetherness.
  
• Feel-good brand messaging: Encouraging, supportive, or motivational copy that reinforces confidence and optimism. For example, LinkedIn’s ‘In It Together’ campaign highlights professional growth and success in a positive way.
  
• Personalized experiences: Tailored recommendations, score-based feedback, or surprise rewards that make customers feel valued. This can be as simple as a discount off your next purchase, with the confirmation email.
  
• Music and emotional cues: Brands use uplifting or nostalgic music to trigger happy emotions. McDonald’s ‘I’m Lovin’ It’ jingle and their nostalgia-fueled tracks (e.g. ‘Oh Yeah’ by Yello) are powerful in different ways.
  
• Limited-time offers framed positively: Instead of pressure-driven scarcity tactics, brands use messaging like ‘You’re just one step away from unlocking your exclusive reward.’
  

Ineffective or risky marketing strategies likely to kill the mood immediately 

• Fear-based marketing: Messages that create anxiety or stress without offering a clear solution, such as extreme health scare tactics in certain insurance advertisements.
  
• Aggressive sales tactics: Overly pushy pop-ups, excessive urgency, or intrusive ads that create frustration, often seen in clickbait-driven digital advertising.
  
• Negative or guilt-driven copy: Essentially, ‘Don’t be a loser, buy this!’ Messaging that shames the consumer, like ‘You’re making a huge mistake if you don’t buy this’ or ‘Without this, you’re a bad mum/dad/friend/human.’ Some weight loss and financial services ads have been criticized for this approach.
  
• Confusing or overwhelming messaging: Too much text, cluttered design, or unclear calls to action that create decision fatigue, seen in poorly designed e-commerce checkout processes.
  
• Dark, gloomy visuals: Brands unintentionally using depressing imagery that makes engagement feel heavy or uninviting. Some early anti-smoking ads were so dark and unsettling that they caused people to disengage rather than take action.
  
• Clickbait and false promises: Creating hype with misleading headlines or exaggerated claims that leave customers feeling deceived, as seen in misleading diet pill advertisements or ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes.
  
• Negative customer interactions: Slow response times, generic automated messages, or dismissive customer service that frustrates potential buyers. Some telecom and airline companies have faced backlash for poor customer service experiences.
  
• Ads that disrupt rather than engage: Loud autoplay videos or intrusive mobile ads that interrupt the user experience rather than enhancing it, commonly seen in low-quality ad placements on news websites.
  

There are so many options open to you when you design your next marketing campaign. Just adding the question, ‘Will this make them feel reassured, better, happier?’ could be what sets you apart. 

How ScoreApp helps you leverage ‘big feelings’ in your marketing

ScoreApp is designed to make your audience’s experience of your marketing campaigns more engaging, interactive, and enjoyable. So, you’re meeting them wherever they are emotionally with a moderate level of positivity—a good point of access for most moods. 

This is achieved through a combination of design features:

• Engaging quizzes and assessments: Get customers involved and excited with genuine interaction.
  
• Personalized score reports: Tailored results help customers feel valued and understood.
  
• Gamification and progress tracking: Features such as progress bars, milestones, and rewards encourage continued engagement.
  
• Automated follow-ups that feel helpful, not pushy: Keeping the conversation going in a way that nurtures relationships rather than overwhelming, or annoying, leads.
  
• Lead nurturing that feels like a game: Rather than traditional sales messaging, ScoreApp creates an interactive journey that customers are part of from the start.
  

Get more sales with more sophisticated understanding of your customers’ moods

The aim isn’t simply to make clients feel good. The aim is to make your customers feel understood. You understand their pain points, aspirations, and the barriers they face. Matching your marketing with their mood demonstrates that you also get how they feel about their position. 

Consideration of customer mood is another weapon in your marketing armory, alongside where and when to position your content. Focusing on when clients are likely to feel happier makes good sense. But, as you can see, there’s more emotional nuance you can use to your advantage. 

ScoreApp makes this easy by helping you create marketing that doesn’t just have a high ROI, but builds strong customer connections using emotional intelligence that makes them feel understood by your brand. 

How does this make you feel? 

• Irritated by another thing you’ve got to fit into your ever-expanding to-do list? 
• Overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of how buyer psychology can impact sales?
• Intrigued by what else you could be doing to get inside the minds of your buyers?

Whatever your ‘feels’, use ScoreApp to skip the time-consuming bit (we’ve done it all for you!) and get straight into boosting sales.