How Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions can boost your brand How do you feel right now? Happy? Sad? Anxious? While most of us think about our emotions in broad-brush terms like these, the reality is a lot more nuanced. In fact, humans can experience around 34,000 different feelings. Though faced with a list that long, you’ll inevitably feel one overriding emotion: overwhelmed! Thankfully, there is a way to make sense of all these emotions. It’s known as the Wheel of Emotions, and it provides a simple visual guide to understanding consumers’ feelings towards brands, communications, and experiences. The wheel plays a fundamental role in how we evaluate consumers’ emotions across many of our products and services, including our award-winning BrandVision (Brand Tracking), AdProbe and our messaging and Advertising testing approach. Introducing the Wheel of Emotions The Wheel of Emotion is the work of US psychologist Dr Robert Plutchik. According to his theory, all 34,000-odd emotions can fall into one of eight main feelings. He groups these in four pairs of opposites: Joy & Sadness, Fear & Anger, Acceptance & Disgust, Surprise & Anticipation. The Wheel of Emotions is a great way to simplify complex emotions and identify how one emotion…
