The family is defined as the basic unit of society (1), an intimate group of people who are relate to each other (2) and thrive in this world. Families in different cultures consume very differently. They come in different sizes, shapes and colors, with each having their own needs, culture, and desires.
This Consumption Unit of Society (3) plays a major role in customer behaviour, every person has their family engraved deeply in their heart and subconscious, nudging them to decide for a trustable SUV instead of a shiny, red, sports car or making them loyal to a brand without really knowing why (it is the one my mom uses!).
How can marketeers and brand strategists better communicate the concept of family? To find out, I used the Neuro Flash App to dive into the implicit associations of “family” in the USA. Helping me to find the right concepts to use when communicating with consumers.
If you’re more interested in Family-Associations from the UK or Singapore, read it here.
This article will help you to
- Understand the consumer mind’s wiring around “Family”
- Energize a family message with emotion
- Enrich family related content with engaging associations
1. Understanding the wiring
Based on the content that consumers read and write (such as mass media sources, books, song lyrics and more) Neuro Flash can determine that “family” is a common word in the USA, occurring ca. 446.7 times every 100.000 words.
People would generally have a positive / happy reaction to “family” when just rating the concept behind it, it has a positive mood [68%]. It can be arousing and calming, depending on the circumstances, thus “family” has a neither strong emotional nor calming connotation.
It is interesting to mention that the concept is perceived as slightly dominant, feminine, and concrete. Americans perceive family as a more tangible concept that, for example, innovation (see the “meaning of innovation” article).
2. Energizing with emotion
The majority of purchasing decisions (non crucial or life-changing) are made by the brain by matching an intensity of emotion towards a certain brand with a willingness to buy (4). You will have a head-start on the mind of the consumer if you link your brand or message to one of these emotions from the beginning.
Which associations combine the power of emotion?
If you want your message to be Happy and Emotional, the choice of words must include: unforgettable, happiness, memorable, gift, affection.
If you want to reflect Happy and Powerful, then delightful, opportunity, enjoy, generous, cheerful would be the associations that would work for your message.
Occasion, honor, pamper, embrace, couple are associations that transmit an Emotional and Powerful message.
If you want your communications to focus on just one emotion, then your best options are:
Romantic, adore, celebration, getaway, proud for very emotional associations, heartfelt, charm, lifelong, peaceful, lifestyle for very powerful associations and youngster, heavenly, truly, companion, cherish for very happy associations.
The sweet spot can be found in the middle of the diagram, the words friendship, joyful, prosperous, fun, wonderful make people feel happy, emotional and powerful.
Ikea hitting “the sweet spot”, a family brand using the word WONDERFUL, Source: Ads of the World
3. Enriching family content
For the next step, the Neuro-Flash App offers thousands of ideas! You can explore asociations, test your text and even consult image inspirations.
Explore associations
The flower graph show words that are connected to the seedword: “family”. Words closer to the middle are more strongly related to the concept in the middle (“family”) and fulfill our current goals. The goal is always defined at the bottom right. in this case, words are connected to the seedword (“family”) and are more common.
In the same way as the associations in the UK and Singapore the word Family in the USA has a strong relation with words about close relationships (husband, mother, child…). Nevertheless, what makes USA stand out is the appearance words for parents and grandparents related to genders, namely father and mother, and grandfather and grandmother. This, summed up with the words household, society, community, and relationship could be a hint to the perception of the word family in America as an institution, a concrete concept.
Nevertheless, the concept extends beyond individuals sharing a same blood of roof and places friends and friendship can be found in the association map, it is worthy to mention that these and life are the happiest words sharing an association with “Family“, which we can identify on the color cue . More green is more happy, more red is more sad. White is neutral.
In effective marketing communication, the use of common words helps to communicate something that everyone understands. A word’s commonness in the country (USA) is indicated in the flower map with the size of the circle surrounding the associated word. Big means more common, smaller means less common. Surrounding “family”, the words live, house, life are common. Grandparent, sibling, grandfather are rare words and may not be as widely use as you think, using uncommon words can capture attention, but could make your message harder to swallow.
Asociations that work on Social Media
The following graphs show concepts surrounding “family” that are related to social media engagement. Engagement is the ability of content to create likes, comments and shares, which nourish the relationship between brand and consumer. Engagement is most correlated with Emotional and Gender Association for Facebook and Instagram, respectively.
The vertical axis sorts concepts to the top when they are connected to more engagment. The horizontal axis indicated the values of the concepts on different dimensions (Emotional and Gender Association).
Emotional: indicates whether a word is rated as more calming or emotional. Very emotional words connected to “family” are excitement, terrify, slay. More calming words are faculty, terrace, courtyard.
Content that uses these words or expresses associated meaning is more engaging. Content evoking associations with proudly, talented, pride are more engaging than content about escape, hotel, travel on Facebook.
Gender-Association: indicates whether a word is perceived to be more masculine or feminine by a typical consumer in the USA. Very feminine words connected to “family” are army, mafia, soldier. More masculine words are postpartum, enchant, fabulous.
Content evokes associations with violence, threaten, crime are more engaging than content about scada, homeschool, or college on Instagram. I.e. when the institution of family is threatened, people engage.
Image inspirations for associations that engage on Facebook
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Family Google Keywords - An extra treat!
Following steps 1, 2 and 3 would allow you to create content that really communicates the message that you want, and using the Social Media sugestions would help you to grow organically. But what if you want to push your content just a little bit more? then the Neuro Flash App helps you to power-up your SEA and SEO strategy by suggesting keywords.
This highly visual summary can help you to determine which keywords are worth to bet based on 3 characteristics: Average Monthly Search (how many people search for this term in a month), Average Cost Per Click (how much does it cost to place an ad for this word in Google Ads), and the level of Competition for that word (based on how many other advertisers are biding on that key word).
For “Family” in the USA, the optimal SEO and SEA campaigns would be build arround the key words Family Fun, Fam and What Family.
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| all in the famil | 13K |
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| the family | 11K |
$0.81 |
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| we are famil |
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$0.67 |
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| family fun |
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| fam |
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| family means |
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$0.86 |
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| what family |
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| family members |
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$1.01 |
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| mormon family | 36K | $1.14 |
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| family family | 24K |
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| one familly | 16K |
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| family is | 13K |
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| family search | 30K | $1.61 |
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| family tre now | 11K |
$1.22 |
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| family names |
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$1.37 |
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| out of the famil | 24K | $1.49 |
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| familial group | 19K |
$1.51 |
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| home and famil | 33K | $2.93 |
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| definition of family | 27K | $5.25 |
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| famil life | 12K |
$3.64 |
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$0.28Conclusion
To generate content that really empowers the message of family for the US market:
1: Understand the wiring
Family is a widely used term that tends to set people in a positive mood. For the US population, family is concrete, dominant, and somewhat feminine.
2: Energize with emotion
Motivate the purchase intention of the public by making them feel happy, emotional, and/or powerful with your message.
How many and which emotions to choose? This depends on your brand’s image: a baby diapers brand might like to make their customers feel happy and emotional talking about how memorable is it to become a parent, a mortgage firm might would like to make their customers feel powerful preaching a peaceful lifestyle.
3: Enrich your content
Create content not only based on your gut feeling, use the words association in your favor: get inspired with relevant images, explore associations and test your text!
The words friendship, life, mom and couple are the happiest concepts strongly associated with the word “family”.
Words can also help you to generate more engagement in social media, and these variate depending on the platform. For Facebook, the word proudly would generate the most engagement, even though having a slightly calming connotation. The public in instagram would react with words like violence, crime and fight; this could be with the intention to protect their families from harm.
References
1: “family.” Merriam-Webster.com. 2020. https://www.merriam-webster.com (11 September 2020)
2: “family.” Dictionary.cambridge.org. 2020. https://dictionary.cambridge.org (11 September 2020)
3: Bigelow, H. (1938). The Consumption Unit of Society-The Family. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 196, 14-19. Retrieved September 11, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1021693
4: Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
