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Empathy and Persuasion: Consumer’s Perspective

The two-way communication model (without the necessity of verbal communication) is one of the basic dynamics that make up social life. This model plays a key role in all our human relations, introducing us to the world and enabling us to make sense of our environment. In all these communication processes, I think the most important point is that the parties understand each other clearly. Constructing the messages we want to convey according to the recipient, making inferences about how to decode the code, and remaining objective regardless of the context deeply affects our communication process and relationships. Although it is easier to implement than to understand, we can summarize all of these complex-sounding inferences as the position of empathy in the communication process.

The Symbiotic Dance of Empathy and Persuasion in Two-Way Communication and Beyond

The relationship between two-way communication and social life is like the relationship between empathy and persuasion. Even though they are two separate terms, they are in constant relationship with each other and cannot be considered separately. Persuasion is a form of social influence. It provides direction to the target to adopt an idea, attitude or action through certain messages – which do not always have to be logical. Although different methods are used in these orientation processes, the most popular and useful method is to make the goal interesting, rather than forcing it. For this, it is necessary to understand the target’s emotions and internalize the motivations that transform these emotions into behaviors; that is, empathy.

Although persuasion has a mathematical basis, the problems in this process originate from humans, that is, emotions. For this reason, the relationship between empathy and persuasion should not be limited to the two-way communication scale. The success of the persuasion technique used in a communication campaign is determined by how well we understand the target audience and how much we internalize the problem and seek a solution. Although the steps leading to the result are the same on both scales, creating a campaign is more difficult than managing perception in human relations.

Decoding Connection: Crafting a Communication Campaign with Insightful Briefs and Empathy-Infused Persuasion

Creative analysis of a communication campaign serves a single purpose, regardless of the message and presentation style: To find effective ways to say ‘We understand you!‘ on behalf of the brand.

Therefore, I think that the brand team has a great duty before the communication campaign starts to be designed: To make an accurate and realistic analysis of the target audience for the existing or anticipated problem, to make a detailed explanation of the problem and the desired result, that is, to prepare a good brief. Afterwards, the creative team warms up their empathy muscles and knocks on the door of persuasion techniques, in short; blood, sweat and tears. 😊

Cultivating Intrapersonal Skills to Safeguard Brand-Agency Relations

Putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes when we have not yet found our place within ourselves can make empathy difficult. Therefore; even communicators who create strategies using the power of communication, design large campaigns, and determine consumers’ purchasing behaviors and attitudes may experience difficulties in communication; Disputes may arise between the brand and the agencies. In order to prevent this, i think we must:

  • Develop our sensitivity towards ourselves, 
  • Evaluate our empathy, communication and persuasion tone in our bilateral relations 
  • Strive to find our own place before trying to persuade others.

Hilal Taylan
Hilal Taylan
Community Digital Analyst