MTM Marketing Exec and BSc Psychology graduate Madalina Rotari shares insights into how cognitive psychology can shape brand strategy.
Needless to say, it typically takes more than just a single ad to convince an audience to buy a product or engage with a brand. Equally, when you think about the elements that might influence perceptions around the brand, memory, attention and emotion might not be the first things you think of. But, what we need to remember is that a consumer's decision-making is a cognitive process, much like how we decide when to eat, drink and sleep, do or wear. So, to build stronger connections, understanding the process behind the decision-making process is essential to creating a brand that truly resonates with your audiences.
So, what does psychology say an effective brand strategy should look like? In this blog, we explore how dispositional factors like emotion and memory drive brand perception and shape the persuasive process on a cognitive level, as well as how this impacts campaign structures, audience communications and brand strategy.
Schematic processing: What makes the cogs turn
Scientists theorise that the brain uses mental shortcuts known as schemas to encode information, memories and knowledge, a theory first put forward by Jean Piaget (1952). The brain groups together related information and stores it in small “packets” of related ideas to make cognitive processes like decision-making and thought-processing more efficient and speedy. However, as with all things, schemas come with limitations; for example, they have limited capacity and potentially can interlink mis-matched ideas.
How does this translate into marketing? As marketeers, we need to understand that brand perceptions are shaped by the information that the audience is able to hold at any given time, and as a result, too many messages that feel disconnected or misaligned can put your brand perception at risk. Ultimately, if your audience is getting too many conflicting messages, they will view your brand as confused or lacking a clear purpose.
What actions you can take today
When crafting a brand strategy, it's essential to develop a well-defined proposition, with a clear message, and stick with it. Focus on a consistent core message, principle, or ethos and carry that throughout your marketing communications. Whether you're communicating through long-form blogs, quick social updates, or large integrated campaigns, trying to be too many things at once can overwhelm a schema (and subsequently your target consumer), muddy brand perception, and risk miscommunication.
How emotions affect schematic-based learning
Emotions don't just influence how a person feels in one given moment; emotions also dictate how a person is going to remember your brand. Not only can the emotion be directly attached to the brand, but some research has even show that emotions can also change the process by which the information is encoded within the schema, meaning that the memory of a brand might differ from what's intended (review Han et al., 2022 and Riegel et al., 2022). This is why emotional cues can make or break your brand strategy.
Use a consistent tone of voice that reflects your brand personality and truly resonates with your audience. And don’t rely on guesswork for it. Data and analytics can give you a precise and strong foundation for understanding who your audience are and their preferences. Use this data to make informed decisions about what they want to hear and how they want to hear it. Explore our blog on how data can shape brand strategy to learn more about the role of data in branding.
How to get emotion-based cues right
If you've been anywhere near LinkedIn lately, you might well have seen Surreal’s social media. The brand often relies on humour, not only through its brand name, but also through its social media posts. This makes the brand feel relatable and enables its audience to view it as one that understands them.
However, some brands could learn a thing or two from Surreal because when organisations adopt emotional cues that do not adhere to their values, personality, or actions, it can seem inauthentic and can even hurt the brand’s reputation. So let’s have a look at this in practice.
Over the years, we have seen a rise in brands showing support for the LGBTQIA+ community during June, with Pride-themed logos, graphic designs, collections and campaigns. While the support was positively received, it has resulted in accusations of corporate rainbow-washing, where brands use LGBTQIA+ imagery to appear inclusive without actually doing anything meaningful for the cause. A brand which is experiencing the repercussions of mismatching its emotion-based cues and its actions is the American clothing giant Target, which has been accused of profiting from LGBTQIA+ activism.
After ten years of Pride collections in its stores, Target was one of the first brands to roll back Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives after President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, with CNN reporting that “Pride merchandise is limited and displayed less prominently in stores than in previous years”. Some audiences have even gone as far as saying the 2025 collection feels lazy and inauthentic to queer folk, and more prepared for anti-pride conservative criticism than LGBTQIA+ activism, further increasing doubt around the legitimacy of its claims and efforts thus far.
This is a great example of the risks when a brand’s communication doesn’t match its actions. It has reduced the trust that Target’s LGBTQIA+ consumer base put in the brand and subsequently put its consumer loyalty in jeopardy.
To avoid this negative sentiment, organisations need to align their emotion-based cues to actions that reflect authentic corporate values rather than market trends. This is especially important to take into account when we consider that “It only takes one inauthentic interaction for your audience to lose trust in everything”, as MTM’s Faber Whitehouse said at the Beyond the hype Think Tank event. However, if authenticity is a concern for you, read more of Faber’s insights into fostering genuine relationships with authentic online communications.
Cognitive psychology in practice
Now that we understand how memory, schemas and emotion shape brand perception, let's look at how we use these insights in your marketing. It is just as impactful for complex brands as for simple ones. A good example is HubSpot. Despite its intricate offering, the brand feels easy to grasp and is memorable.
Offering everything from marketing automation and sales enablement to CRM and AI-driven data tools, HubSpot focuses on one clear, overarching message around business growth, not just tools. This gives potential buyers an immediate sense of what HubSpot is for and the value they’ll get from using it.
Secondly, HubSpot groups its offer into five core ‘Hubs’ that help the consumer segment services around familiar concepts instead of endless features. This keeps the schema clean and digestible, whereby buyers don’t have to remember specific product names and their precise functionality, making it easier to slot HubSpot into an existing cognitive framework.
Thirdly, the brand maintains a clear emotional narrative; HubSpot speaks with warmth, confidence and a helpful tone of voice that backs up its claims around the “Growing Better” narrative, and reinforces trust over time.
Moreover, its emotion-based cues and marketing strategies extend beyond its on-platform communications and continue to support the same schematic encoding via off-platform social media channels. For example, the brand regularly posts about the everyday struggles of working in marketing, sales and other professions its audience can relate to. This is content designed less to convert and more to connect, deepening the emotional bond between consumers and the brand, even when they aren’t actively seeking a new platform. This creates front-of-mind awareness and makes the decision easier when the time is right, as HubSpot already holds a trusted space in their mental framework.
Overall, these features work seamlessly together to reduce cognitive strain and strengthen brand recall, not fighting against each other, which is what can happen when your messaging is unclear and chaotic and too busy.
A conclusive overview
In an increasingly crowded and competitive marketplace, understanding the cognitive processes that drive consumer behaviour is essential. From how information is encoded in memory, to the emotional responses your messaging provokes, every element of your brand strategy plays a role in shaping how you're perceived.
By leveraging insights from cognitive psychology, you can craft a brand identity that captures attention and leaves a mark. The key lies in consistency, authenticity, and using data-driven insights into consumer behaviour to build genuine connections. Because ultimately, the most memorable brands don’t just speak to the mind, they connect with the human behind the decision.