How Tapping Real Feelings Makes Marketing Memorable

What makes a commercial stick after the laughs fade? We dig into the 2026 Super Bowl’s most emotional moments and translate them into practical tactics any small business can use to build trust, recall, and real community. 

From the Lays tearjerker to Toyota’s “every destination has a beginning,” we show how story beats specs and why highlighting people, founders, teams, and customers creates loyalty that outlasts ad spend.

We walk through simple moves you can test this week: share your origin story with throwback photos, celebrate milestones that invite your audience to cheer you on, and put faces front and center to build recognition. 

If being on camera feels daunting, try team snapshots at volunteer events, quick behind-the-scenes images, or short notes paired with candid photos. The point isn’t polish; it’s proof that humans power your brand. 

Along the way, we unpack when to lead with emotion versus humor, how to align tone with your industry, and why brand personality outperforms feature lists in crowded feeds.

Whether you’re nurturing customer loyalty, increasing repeat purchases, or earning more referrals, these strategies help your brand feel familiar and trusted.

Subscribe for more weekly ideas tailored to business owners, creators, and marketers. If today’s conversation sparked something useful, share it with a friend or leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co

Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies. 

Transcript

Welcome And Series Context

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Kickstart Your Week, brought to you by Kickstart Collective, a marketing agency focused on helping brands grow with purpose. Every Monday we're here to help business owners, creators, and marketers start their week with clarity and momentum and practical ideas you can actually use. Kickstart Your Week is produced right here at Kickstart Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina. Let's Kickstart Your Week.

Why Emotions Beat Pure Humor

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome back to Kickstart Your Week. We are continuing our series going over Super Bowl commercials and kind of diving into different themes that we saw this year and seeing how we can apply that to marketing on a smaller scale. And so this is our second, third of that series. We have a couple other episodes out. So you can go catch up on those and come back and watch this one. But today we are exploring the theme of tapping into people's emotions in commercials.

Toyota’s Story Over Specs Lesson

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah. There were a few tearjerkers and this year's Super Bowl uh ads. So that's always fun. Craft your friends at a party. Yeah. Um, but in reality, um, I think what's cool is just what small businesses can learn from the storytelling aspect of some of these ads and pulling more on those emotional heart strings. Because a lot of the Super Bowl ads, it's a lot of humor, um, different things like that, whereas there is a different route you can go. Um, you know, if your brain's not one that it's appropriate to tie humor in, yeah, this human emotion connection community could be a good place um to use that. So um, yeah, those like shared human experiences, emotions, warmth, heritage, all that was seen in this year's Super Bowl um ads, uh the Lays commercial. Yes, that was very good. Was a big one. Yeah, that we talked about during the um the recap episode. Thank you. Yes, that thing that we did.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Um, and I I also liked the Toyota commercial, um, the every destination has a beginning campaign where they showed successful athletes today interacting with their younger selves, kind of showing going back to their beginnings, and then it was showing their beginning and their in destination in the same video, and it like made me choke up a little bit and is memorable, yeah, obviously. Yeah, um, so yeah, I think sometimes tapping into the emotional side of things can cut through the the funnier ones, yeah.

Small-Business Tactics For Emotion

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah, it has a different way of standing out. And I think um when you're talking about that Toyota one, it reminded me of our last episode where we talked about the brand personality, you know, highlighting that over product specs or details or product education. I think that Toyota one is a good example of how this can tie into that because they're not telling you, hey, this Toyota has four-wheel drive and heated seats or something. It's the brand message of like the destination and then using the athletes to tie it all then together. So um, all that to say, how what's some ways that small businesses can do this to bring in some of that emotion, human connection piece? Um, I don't know if you want to give some examples, like maybe some easy attainable examples to sort of.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

I think something I personally like seeing small businesses do is, well, it's a couple of different things. One of them, um, you mentioned storytelling. I think storytelling going back to your origin story, you know, maybe it's posting throwback pictures of when you first opened or um giving the story of the behind the scenes of you opening and starting your business, I think that's always fun and a good way for people to feel emotionally connected to you. Yeah. Um, another thing that I like seeing businesses do is post their milestones and like celebrate wins with people. Um, because I think as small businesses, it's it's you're you're working in a community. And so it's easy to build community around yourself. And for me at least, I like seeing small businesses win. I like championing them. And so I just think sharing those, you know, whether it's we've been in business for X amount of years or we just sold to our whatever number customer. Um I think celebrating wins is a is a good way to emotionally connect to your audience and your community.

Put Faces Front And Center

SPEAKER_01 4:51

And I think, yeah, for the small business, especially like local small businesses, that human element, well, even if you're it's not a local small business, like going back and showing like the people and like the human element behind it's gonna create a connection too. Right. Um so yeah, I think though and those things are easy, like easy to do. You can easily take a picture of your team, grab an old photo, share it on social. It could be an email. Um, so there's a lot of easy ways to do that. Um, and then for like the more storytelling pieces, those can be, you know, camp marketing campaigns. Yeah. Um, sort of where they're built out and it pulls again more in some of those brand um personality, brand messaging to build out a story that is more of a connection piece.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Um it can be scary, but putting your face out there does it goes a long way. It does. It it gives people a face to the name, to the brand. Um and it like I said, it is scary to like be on camera or be in photos or just have your face, your name out there, but it it can go a long way depending on what kind of business you are. Yeah, for sure.

Make Loyalty Through Human Connection

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Um, and I think it that portion of it too, like it creates some recon recognition, I guess. Yeah. For you as the person, as the business owner. Um, which then when you're out in the community, there's that like another element of like, oh yeah, you know, seeing your face, seen your name, heard your brand. Um, so I think that, yeah, is important to to put your face on things. Um, and then I mean there's different ways to do that. Two, if it's, you know, you don't necessarily have to come sit down and record a video. Right. Um, highly recommend it, but if you're like that's just not happening, that's okay. Like if your team volunteered at an event, grab a team photo, um, grab a quick action shot. You know, can't gather everybody, but get some faces, get some human connection, like show different things. Um, again, outside of just the product or service that you're selling, like build, build something for people to connect to. Um yeah, I don't yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah, I mean, once people make those connections too, it's harder to like replace or just forget about you, you know. I think it's something that helps people come back to you again and again if they need the service that you provide, you know, and they already have that emotional connection. Yeah, it's easier for them to come back, hire you again or purchase from you again um because of that connection that you made. For sure. Cool.

When To Use Emotion Versus Humor

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Well, get in front of get in front of uh a camera, people main takeaway. Um no, I mean I think I think that was kind of the bulk of I think what we wanted to cover for this episode. Um, so really just figuring out a way if you know, if human, I think everybody needs a bit of the human connection piece regardless of the business. I mean, you see Walmart highlighting real employees and like commercials every now and again. Um so there's that piece of it. Um, but then if your brand does have something that is like more of an emotional connection story, um, that warmth, legacy, yeah, anything like that, then I think that's where you can use this theme and concept as like a larger marketing campaign and message. Um so that piece might not be for everyone. Um, some it really is, you know, relying on humor or might need to be super professional depending on your industry. Um but I think there's something from this theme that regardless of the business, you have to embrace. Yeah. In my opinion. Yes, agreed. In our professional opinions. Um so yeah, um, if you enjoy this episode, um keep subscribe or subscribe, keep watching, because we have two more again that are going to talk about the major themes we saw in this year's Super Bowl ads that um typically are things that carry throughout at least a year, usually longer than that. But um there's a lot that small business owners and marketers can learn from kind of diving into the themes um from these bigger brands. Um so stay tuned. If you're not already on our email list, you can do that on our website and we'll email you these episodes every Monday. Um, but yeah, y'all have a good week. Thanks. Thanks for listening to Kickstart Your Week. If today's episode gave you something to think about or try this week, be sure to subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a review. It helps more people find the show. And if you're looking to create your own podcast or content, Kickstart Studios is available for bugging. We'll be back next week with another conversation to help you kickstart your week.