There are some interesting implications for how we do

advertising in some recent research on temperature. The

science blog Neurophilosophy asks, why is it that we have so

many metaphors which relate temperature to social distance? We

might, for example, hold “warm feelings” for somebody, and

extend them a “warm welcome”, while giving somebody else “the

cold shoulder” or “an icy stare”. These aren’t just figures

of speech: we judge others on the basis of warmth because

abstract concepts, such as affection, are firmly grounded in

bodily sensations.

Several different experiments have shown that physically

warming people up, by itself, causes them to feel warmer

relationships to the people and things around them. And the

interaction between social cognition and temperature is

bi-directional: warmer temperatures induce social proximity,

while loneliness makes people feel colder.

We don’t usually think about the physical temperature we

communicate in ads, at least not on a conscious level. But it

has an impact on how people feel about what they see in the

ad. It changes the nature of their engagement with the

characters in an ad. Since one of those characters is the

brand, that will also affect their future engagement with the

brand, not just the ad.

It would be interesting to compare the temperature profiles of

ad campaigns within categories, to see how that contributes to

the long term success of the brand. Corona’s warm tropical

breezes have been part of a long-term success story. Coors

Light finally broke through with a cold message– will the

brand be able to maintain a social bond among its users, or

will it establish a franchise of lonely losers who like thin

beer? That could of course be a huge franchise,

business-wise, but the focus groups would be grimly

depressing.

Thoughts and comments welcome.