Emotional Communication in Advertising and Marketing: A Study of

Consumer Behaviour Guidance and Corporate Decision-Making

Enhancement Paths

Jiaqi Du

and Yiran Wang

＊

International Business School, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Shanghai, 201620, China

Faculty of Arts, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

＊

Keywords: Emotional Communication, Consumer Behaviour, Corporate Decision-Making.

Abstract: In the digital age of information overload, emotional communication has become an important strategy in

advertising and marketing to enhance consumer interaction and improve brand identity. This study examines

how emotional advertising influences consumer behaviour, including brand awareness, purchase intention

and loyalty building. Using Coca-Cola's multinational marketing campaign ‘Share a Coke’ as a case study,

this study analyses how emotional communication influences consumer behaviour and what key points its

success provides for corporate marketers. The study finds that symbolic and personalised emotional

connections can enhance consumers’ sense of belonging to a brand and spread virally through users’

autonomous social interactions, thus increasing brand impression and loyalty. Therefore, when developing

emotional marketing strategies, companies should pay attention to consumer preferences and needs, express

consumers' personalised needs through products, and think of user-led social interactions in order to achieve

long-term brand development and value shaping.

1 INTRODUCTION

In today’s digital age, where consumers are inundated

with overwhelming volumes of information from

various media channels, the effectiveness of

traditional advertising—centered on product

functionality and pricing—has significantly declined

(Pereira Teixeira et al., 2024; Deshwal, 2015).

Simultaneously, there is a growing demand for

emotional resonance in advertising. Consumers

increasingly respond to brand messages that go

beyond transactional appeals to evoke emotional

engagement, construct brand narratives, and foster

brand personality. Emotional advertisements that

stimulate subconscious responses and build

emotional connections have been found to boost sales

performance significantly—by as much as 23%,

according to Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience studies

(Patel, 2023; Brandt, 2016).

Unlike conventional advertising, emotional

marketing emphasizes immersion and interaction,

encouraging psychological involvement rather than

passive reception. Studies by Chen, Ling, and Chen

(2023) have identified factors such as emotional

appeal, perceived credibility, and ad engagement as

crucial drivers of users’ click-through and purchase

intentions in the context of social media advertising.

These insights offer theoretical grounding and

practical implications for emotion-based strategies in

brand marketing.

Nonetheless, designing effective emotional

strategies tailored to consumers' individual

preferences and socio-psychological profiles remains

a challenge—particularly across diverse cultural

landscapes. Given the variability in emotional values,

cultural norms, and media consumption behaviors

across regions, brands must shift from standardized

communication toward more audience-centric and

context-sensitive approaches. Social media has

further transformed advertising into a multi-

directional process where peer-to-peer influence

complements brand messaging. Consequently,

companies must navigate complex media ecosystems

and cultural identities when deploying emotional

narratives on global platforms.

To explore the dynamics of emotional

advertising, this study examines Coca-Cola’s

branding efforts as a case. Coca-Cola has consistently

leveraged universal emotions—such as joy,

friendship, and togetherness—while adapting its

Du, J. and Wang, Y.

Emotional Communication in Advertising and Marketing: A Study of Consumer Behaviour Guidance and Corporate Decision-Making Enhancement Paths.

DOI: 10.5220/0013992700004916

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Public Relations and Media Communication (PRMC 2025), pages 425-430

ISBN: 978-989-758-778-8

425

messaging to local cultural contexts. By analyzing

Coca-Cola's emotional strategies and their outcomes

in different markets, this research aims to provide

strategic insights into enhancing emotional

communication for global brands.

This paper focuses on the role of emotional

transmission in advertising and its influence on

consumer behavior. It investigates how emotional

content shapes brand perception, purchase intentions,

and customer loyalty. Additionally, it proposes a

systematic framework for integrating emotional

marketing into corporate decision-making, enabling

brands to build sustainable value and deepen

consumer engagement in competitive markets.

2 COCA-COLA CASE

INTRODUCTION

2.1 Case Descriptions

“Share a Coke” is a multinational marketing

campaign first launched by The Coca-Cola Company

in Australia in 2011, which centred on replacing the

traditional Coke bottle brand logo “Coca-Cola” with

a name or heartwarming phrase that is widely used

and popular among consumers (Yacub Tanasyah et

al., 2025). The campaign was a great success and

created a buzz on social media. People excitedly

searched for their names or content related to them on

Coke bottles in supermarket shelves and analysed

them with others.

The campaign has since been rolled out in over 80

countries and continues to be a hit. This campaign

fully integrates and combines the local culture of each

country, con-stantly selecting and adding new names

and phrases, so much so that it is innovative and

localised to a certain extent while meeting the

purchasing needs of consumers.

From an advertising and marketing perspective,

emotional marketing is a powerful marketing strategy

that always resonates emotionally with consumers in

a simple and direct way. Consumers do not always

remain rational in their decision-making process, and

the impact of emotional branding is thus revealed,

especially when the audience feels and experiences

some kind of strong and lasting brand attachment

(Gao, 2022), and creative and heart-touching

marketing campaigns. The next section will use

Coca-Cola's marketing campaign ‘Share a Coke’ as a

typical example of how emotional marketing

influences consumer behaviour, and analyse how it

can play a role in personalisation, social drive and

brand loyalty, and discuss the key issues that should

be considered and addressed when designing

marketing programmes. It also explores the key

points that companies should consider and address

when designing marketing programmes to maximise

brand exposure and build long-term emotional

connections with consumers.

3 TARGET MARKET

3.1 Segmentation

3.1.1 Demographic Segmentation

The target audience is young people of Generation Z

and Millennials, with income levels concentrated at

the mass consumption level.

3.1.2 Psychographic Segmentation

This target group has a sense of individual expression,

values interpersonal interaction and sharing with

others, and has a need for emotional expression. In

their lives, they like to try new and interesting things,

are active on online sites and social media, and favour

sweets like Coca-Cola.

3.1.3 Behavioral Segmentation

Target consumers buy more frequently and tend to

make multiple or consecutive purchases in a short

period of time. Their purchasing decisions are more

likely to be influenced by product creativity,

emotional relevance, and personalised elements,

rather than price or brand considerations alone. In

addition, they tend to derive emotional benefits

through social interaction, self-identity expression,

and emotional connection and fulfilment.

3.2 Targeting

In the ‘Share a Coke’ marketing campaign, the Coca-

Cola Company's main target group is teenagers and

young consumers between the ages of 13-25 (Ghosh,

2019). This group is not only active in social media

and networking, but also tends to show their self-

identity through product features and spends time

with friends and family. They have strong

personalised expression and emotional needs, and

like to find and buy things that relate to their own

nature or behaviour in their daily lives, focusing more

on the emotional value and resonance of a product

than on its value for money.

Therefore, Coca-Cola has accurately grasped the

psychological characteristics of this consumer group

and transformed the product into a medium for

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carrying their emotions and identity. At the same

time, the brand takes advantage of the behavioural

characteristics of this group of people who are keen

to share their lives and obtain in-formation on the

Internet, and actively promotes and encourages

consumers to share their own Coke bottles and selfies

on social media, stimulating consumers to spread on

their own, thus expanding the influence and

popularity of the product.

3.3 Position

The ‘Share a Coke’ campaign is remembered and

widely circulated for its affordable prices and

innovative and relevant advertising and marketing

strategies to people's everyday lives (Ghosh, 2019),

with a market positioning focused on personalisation

and consumer engagement. By replacing the brand

logo with a name or phrase that consumers are likely

to use and enjoy the most, The Coca-Cola Company

has trans-formed the product from a standard

transformation and routine to a point of output of

personalised expression for the consumer (Vincent &

Kolade, 2019), which has succeeded in creating a

strong emotional bond between the consumer and the

brand as well as increasing the brand's recognisability

and intimacy with the consumer. It also breaks with

the traditional product marketing approach of

positioning the product centred on its own benefits

and price, and instead focuses more on the added

benefits of emotional value, expression and social

interaction that the product provides. This positioning

strategy makes the product stand out in the market of

similar beverages and at-tracts the attention of young

people, occupying a unique place in their hearts.

4 HOW EMOTIONAL

MARKETING MARKETS

CONSUMER DECISIONS

4.1 Semiological Analysis

In semiotic sense, advertisement is an arrangement of

different linguistic or advertising elements which

include illustrations, slogans, descriptions and so on

(Jakarta, 2010). These symbols and signs play an

indirect role in guiding consumers and

advertisements manipulate consumer perception and

behaviour through these symbols (Rudrakumar &

Venkatraman, 2022).

In the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, the unique

textual symbols (popular names or phrases) on the

Coke bottles triggered emotional recognition

mechanisms in consumers. These symbols do not

only serve as the semiotics of the signifier, but also as

the signified, and the emotional arousal, identity and

other attributes behind the symbols. This symbolism

enhances the emotional value of the brand, so that

purchasing decisions are no longer made purely from

the perspective of the product itself, but

subconsciously triggered by their inner emotions,

thus promoting the possibility of purchase.

Furthermore, symbolism cannot be thought of in

isolation, but rather is associated, defined and thus

constructed throughout the language family

(Stawarska, 2015). Thus, when consumers see a name

or phrase on a Coke bottle, it causes them to associate

it with their close family or friends, or an experience,

to the extent that it creates a connection with their

lives and values, thus creating an emotional

projection. In this process, advertising and product

attributes are no longer just persuaders to promote

purchase, but an important medium for consumer

emotion and relationship building.

4.2 Personalized Analysis

At the same time, this semiotic marketing lays the

foundation for personalised com-munication of the

product. When consumers see their name on a drink,

it creates a strong sense of ownership and emotional

belonging and gives them some sense of ownership.

It also gives consumers a sense of their own

importance to the brand and is an integral part of

brand building. In addition, people always like to

discover and buy things that relate to their own nature

or behaviour and are habitually attracted to the unique

look of any product, especially when they feel

emotionally connected to that brand or product. This

personalisation strategy not only creates a mandatory

communication with the consumer without them

being aware of it, but also encourages them to find

and share names and identities with people who carry

special meanings.

This mechanism also profoundly reflects the

kernel of emotional marketing, as this personalisation

strategy effectively attracts consumers' attention and

satisfies their needs and desires (Gao, 2022), thus

enabling the brand to demonstrate a strong emotional

connection with consumers based on affinity and

personalisation, especially young people and

millennials in Generation Z. The personalised bottle

satisfies consumers' emotional needs while evoking

an emotional connection with those around them. Due

to the atmosphere of joy conveyed by the text design

of the bottle itself, and the fact that happiness is one

of the easier emotions to evoke (Gao, 2022),

consumers can easily be infected by this emotion to

the extent of purchasing bottles with special

Emotional Communication in Advertising and Marketing: A Study of Consumer Behaviour Guidance and Corporate Decision-Making

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meaningful text to share or maintain their feelings of

joy. Therefore, when this personalised marketing and

emotional infection is visualised and concretised in

the product packaging, a strong emotional bond is

also created between the brand and the consumer,

thus triggering widespread empathy and

communication.

4.3 Social Media Interaction

In addition, this strong emotional connection and the

psychological drive of social interaction will make

audiences and consumers unconsciously share and

post personalised bottles on social media, such as

sharing photos of themselves with the bottles and so

on, thus creating viral communication. User-

generated content and word-of-mouth marketing and

is an important source of information for consumers

(Chen & Yuan, 2020), compared with traditional

advertisements, such posts have more authenticity

and credibility, and are more likely to gain the

attention of others and attract more people to

participate. This kind of user-initiated marketing has

successfully helped Coca-Cola to expand the impact

of the campaign quickly and effectively, and far ex-

ceeded the reach and information coverage of

traditional marketing methods. In addition, for the

purpose of social interaction, many consumers would

expect to find their own names or the names of people

close to them among the many colas available, which

in many ways increased their purchasing power and

desire. This is a kind of emotion-driven

communication and purchase, in which the product

gradually becomes the link and medium for

consumers' emotional transmission and social

interaction.

At the same time, Coca-Cola Company

encourages consumers to share their personalised

bottles on social media and keeps sharing bottles with

text and showcasing great consumer-generated

content on its official social media accounts (Ghosh,

2019). The #ShareaCoke hashtag was a red-hot hit on

all major social media, which not only expanded the

wide reach of the product, but was also effective in

increasing brand loy-alty and making it seem more

approachable and credible (Gildin, 2022).

5 ENTERPRISE

DECISION-MAKING PATH

The success of the "Share a Coke" case shows that

personalized emotional marketing, user-active

sharing and long-term brand emotional shaping are

key factors affecting consumer behavior. When

formulating advertising and marketing strategies,

enterprises should not only pay attention to short-term

market response, but also pay attention to the long-

term accumulation of emotional value, so that

consumers become a part of the brand story, so as to

establish deep emotional connections, improve brand

loyalty and strengthen market competitiveness.

5.1 Take Consumers' Emotional Needs

as the Core and Formulate Precise

Marketing Strategies

Against the background of the rapid development of

social media, consumers' high demand for emotions

is increasingly prominent in brand marketing.

Enterprises should deeply understand the

personalized needs of consumers based on the

psychological needs and behavioral characteristics of

consumers, so as to achieve more accurate emotional

communication. In order to achieve this goal,

enterprises should make full use of big data and

artificial intelligence technology (Priyanka et al.,

2023) to deeply analyze the interest preferences,

social behavior and consumption habits of consumers

in the target market. For example, the personalized

recommendation system is an im-portant tool to

improve consumers' emotional resonance. Based on

consumers' past purchase records and social

interaction data, it pushes advertising content that

meets their interests, which can greatly enhance the

accuracy of emotional touch.

5.2 Promote Consumers' Active

Communication and Enhance the

Social Influence of the Brand

Brand influence depends not only on the enterprise's

own marketing investment, but also on the

independent sharing and interaction behavior of

consumers. User-generated content (UGC) has

become an important driving force for brand

communication. Its real and credible characteristics

can effectively improve the brand image and expand

the scope of influence. Enterprises can encourage

consumers to share their brand experiences through

social challenges, preferential incentive mechanisms,

etc. to improve their participation (Chen et al., 2023).

In addition, working with opinion leaders (KOLs) or

communities to use influential people or community

members to promote the brand can drive a wider

range of consumer groups to participate in brand

interaction and enhance the social influence of the

brand.

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5.3 Build the Long-Term Emotional

Value of the Brand and Optimize

the Continuous Marketing Strategy

Although emotional marketing can quickly improve

the popularity of the brand in the short term, when

formulating marketing strategies, enterprises should

not only focus on the effect of a single activity, but

also focus on the long-term development of the brand,

focus on the core value of the brand, and continue to

create content that meets the emotional needs of

consumers to maintain long-term influence and

competitive-ness. Brand Storytelling is an important

way to build brand emotional assets. Enterprises can

make brand value run through multiple marketing

activities by building a coherent emotional main line.

5.4 Balance Brand Globalization and

Localization Strategies to Enhance

Cross-Cultural Emotional

Resonance

For multinational brands, emotional marketing not

only involves the shaping of global brand image, but

also takes into account the emotional needs of

different cultural markets. Combining globalization

strategy and localization adaptation, it can improve

the emotional communication ability of brands in

different markets. When promoting emotional

marketing activities, enterprises can adopt the

strategy of "global brand + localized emotion" to

adjust the advertising content according to the

cultural back-ground of different countries and

regions, so as to make the brand closer to local

consumers. For example, invite local stars or opinion

leaders to endorse to make the brand closer to the

local culture, or design marketing content that meets

the emotional ex-pectations of local consumers in

combination with festivals, customs and social

hotspots, such as launching emotional advertisements

in the Chinese market in combination with traditional

festivals such as Spring Festival and Qixi Festival to

enhance brand affinity.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Emotional communication in advertising and

marketing transforms brand marketing from one-way

communication to two-way interaction, thus

effectively influencing consumer behaviour, and

effective emotional communication can help enhance

brand influence and consumer loyalty. An analysis of

Coca-Cola's ‘Share a Coke’ case shows that Coca-

Cola replaced the traditional logo with a personalised

name or phrase, trans-forming the product from a

single, traditional persuasive package to a

personalised emotional symbol with emotional

resonance and social interaction. This symbol not

only reflects personal identity, but also integrates the

consumer as part of the brand's expression and

effectively promotes the spread of emotions and thus

has a positive impact on consumer behaviour. In

addition, in Coca-Cola's emotional marketing

strategy, the symbol and the personalisation factor

strongly motivate consumers to engage with the

product, resulting in spontaneous marketing on social

media. This spontaneous social interaction based on

real emotions is the most credible and contagious, and

can significantly increase brand visibility and

communication reach, driving consumer purchases

and continued engagement in communication.

In addition, this study provides an optimisation

path for business decision-making. The study finds

that personalised emotional resonance, user-owned

communication and long-term brand emotional

shaping are key to improving brand impact.

The success of emotional marketing relies on

accurate data analysis and social interaction

strategies. Enterprises should use big data technology

to deeply understand consumer preferences, and

optimise advertising reach with personalised

recommendation systems. At the same time, they

should encourage user-generated content (UGC) and

enhance the brand's social influence through social

media interactions. In addition, companies need to

build long-term brand emotional value and ensure the

continuity and consistency of marketing activities to

achieve a deep connection between brands and

consumers.

In the future, companies should balance the unity

of brand image and localisation strategy in the context

of globalisation, and develop more targeted emotional

communication programmes that take into account

the psychology of consumers in different cultural

markets, so as to build lasting brand value in a

competitive market environment.

AUTHORS CONTRIBUTION

All the authors contributed equally and their names

were listed in alphabetical order.

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