Jimmy KimCEO & Founder, Commerce Roundtable · Marketer of 17+ Years, 4x Founder. Former DTC/Retailer & SaaS Founder. Newsletter. Host of ASOM & Send it! Podcast. DTC Event: Commerce Roundtable

The Real Reason Emotional Marketing Works (And How to Use It Right)

24 May 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:34

In this YouTube monologue, Jimmy Kim explains emotional marketing as the practice of connecting with an audience’s broader lived experience rather than merely solving a problem. He argues that while many brands focus on logical problem‑solving, true impact comes from tapping into the contextual, emotional world of the consumer. Kim highlights the rise of AI tools that can mimic emotional cues, warning marketers to go deeper than surface‑level sentiment. To illustrate his point, he shares a personal anecdote about his husband, a beer‑league hockey enthusiast whose life is woven through TV shows, articles, online forums, and constant conversation with friends. This example demonstrates how a consumer’s experience is distributed across multiple media and community touchpoints, and how effective emotional marketing must plug into that entire ecosystem. The video ends with a call to subscribe to the podcast.

Chapters

What is emotional marketing? Why do emotionals drive impact and over pure logic ultimately? Yeah, I think this is a really good core question to ask, especially right now because we're seeing this giant AI boom and everybody's shifting over to using these brand new tools who are really good at mimicking this emotional marketing. I think good solid definition that we could put down just upfront that emotional marketing really is connecting with your audience on that deeper, more contextual level. So emotional marketing has to do with can you connect to someone's experience better than your competitors can? And I say experience, And not necessarily their problem, because if everyone's going after problems, then nobody's really speaking to anybody. We're all kind of going after the same problem in the same frame, if that makes sense. So I like emotional marketing because it directly ties to a human experience. So great example of this, my husband is a beer league hockey player and just obsessed with it. And all he does all day long is just like constantly chat with his bros and he's like planning things out. I don't even know. He does the hockey thing. Now, the interesting part is because of this, he also watches television shows that are related to like beer league hockey. And if you know, You know what Shorzy is, you know what beer league hockey is like. He also reads a lot, like lots of articles on this specific piece of his life. He's also actively involved in a bunch of online communities. I mean, the guy is just plugged in everywhere and his experience, the, the, the actual context of what he wants to do with this specific piece of his life is built on all the places that he's plugged in. So I think emotional marketing comes down to, again, how well can you plug into the entire experience of that person's world and not just like one specific problem? Subscribe to the pod.