“Emotional Content Strategy” Review —Using Canva as an Example
By: Julia Lin
Tags: Content Strategy, Emotions

Emotional targeting

I remember when I first moved to Melbourne, I was stunned by all the coffee choices I got to have. Walking down in a random neighbourhood, I could easily find several reputable brewers and try all the unique taste and aroma of their specialty. The only thing bad about it was when I got too many choices, I was left in the dilemma of which brand to choose in the long run. I did not want the hassle of ordering different coffee beans all the time, and also as a student, 1kg bulk order was way more cost-effective than getting 1 pound at a time.

Here is when emotions come into my decision making. There were two brands that stood out in flavours with similar price points. Brand A delivers normally within 36 hours once the order is placed, sometimes adds in special surprise like a mini bouquet for Mother’s Day. Brand B however, raised price out of nowhere and even though I signed up as a member, there was never a time when I feel ‘special’ about their service.

Both brands have the best quality beans but which one I ended up being with is pretty obvious. Brand A clearly devoted enough efforts and spent more time taking care of customers’ emotions while brand B didn't do anything wrong really, but has lost one long-term customer. That is because we don’t only buy a product, we are often after the emotional values created by a purchase.

Talia has created a framework to help businesses take care of customers’ emotional needs. The framework consists of 4 steps:

Step1 Emotional Competitor Analysis

Unlike regular competitor analysis that focuses on products and service, we focus on the emotional side of things for the first step. There are four elements Talia recommended us to look at including key message, colour, image, and emotional triggers. Using Canva, an online design software, as an example. The key messages on its landing page are:

“Design anything” “Everyone can create professional designs with Canva. It’s easy to use and free.

Short and concise. Canva makes its key message about the users. It emphasises how users would be able to create a design in a professional and easy way. The turquoise colour of its logo represents refreshment, energy and creativity, while on the landing page banner, the image consists of store discount on mobile devices, as well as stylish, designer-looking man and woman as featured characters, implying the variety of design work the tool is offering. The purple base of the banner also brings the magical and spiritual effects, reinforcing its emotional triggers —the simplicity of this tool empower people to design.

On the other hand, Canva’s well-known competitor, Adobe Illustrator, features itself as the “Industry-leading vector graphics software”. The key message immediately presents a sense of sophistication, placing its brand as a service for professionals in the design industry. The orange theme creates a sense of enthusiasm, stimulation and encouragement. Characters, animals and all other images on the landing page are vector presented, which is aligned with its service. Its emotional trigger is the convenience of cloud-based / cross-device service.

Talia recommended to do at least 10–15 competitor analysis and put the common emotional triggers together to see whether they are covered by your own brand. One thing I found very interesting is that, once I do emotional competitive analysis based on the 4 elements above, I immediately have a strong preference on which brand I would like the most. Try it yourself and see whether this works with your emotional brain!

Step2 Emotional SWOT Analysis

The next step is to conduct an emotional SWOT analysis. Again, instead of comparing features and prices, we focus on what emotions are triggered by your brand and the overall industry.

A screenshot of Canva interface during Christmas season.

Strength : Simplicity and empowerment. Canva creates the emotion of empowerment by making people believe they can create good, professional design in a very easy way.

: Simplicity and empowerment. Canva creates the emotion of empowerment by making people believe they can create good, professional design in a very easy way. Weakness : Lack of originality. Canva makes it easy for people to design by creating tons of template that are available for free. This triggers people’s emotion, thinking whether the design would be original enough to be unique.

: Lack of originality. Canva makes it easy for people to design by creating tons of template that are available for free. This triggers people’s emotion, thinking whether the design would be original enough to be unique. Opportunity : High demand for better looking visual materials. The demand for good designs is raising as the world now more than ever need great visuals to catch people’s attention on the internet. Thus non-designers are in the emotionally-desired mood for good visuals and an easier-to-operate tool.

: High demand for better looking visual materials. The demand for good designs is raising as the world now more than ever need great visuals to catch people’s attention on the internet. Thus non-designers are in the emotionally-desired mood for good visuals and an easier-to-operate tool. Threat: People’s lack of confidence in doing design work; people are not sure whether good design pieces are necessary. A lot of non-designers assume design is just too hard to learn and don't believe they have the creativity that’s needed.

SWOT analysis will help us better understand the competitive landscape emotionally and what we can leverage when we get into creating strategy — which is the 3rd step.

Step3 Emotional Content Strategy

The next step is to put what we have collected into the following table — the emotions, elements, words, visual, and colour. Talia used the online dating industry as an example to showcase her framework:

Talia’s Emotional Targeting Content Framework — using online dating industry as an example

For us if we put Canva and Illustrator into the table it looks like:

Canva V.S. Illustrator using Talia’s Emotional Targeting Content Framework

Step4 Testing

Last but not least, as usual: test, test, and test. All the analysis and hypothesis are not valid till we get enough support with data. Just like Talia mentioned in the course, conversion optimisation is not only about reaching one certain KPI but more about understanding customers, who change along the way too. So keep up with the testing!