Interviews

In a marketplace full of nearly indistinguishable products, marketing professor and researcher Dr. DelVecchio emphasized that emotional resonance becomes the true differentiator. His research into affect, particularly in pricing contexts, shows that what we feel about a brand often matters more than what we know. When every bottle of soda tastes so similar, people don't make decisions based on sugar content or carbonation—they choose the brand that gives them the most intangible value. That feeling could come from a nostalgic commercial, a cause the brand supports, or just the emotional halo built through years of consistent messaging. Dr. Delvecchio highlighted how affect fills the gaps in decision-making when logic offers no clear winner. His insight reframes marketing as a kind of emotional architecture: you're not just building a pitch, but an experience. Affect becomes the tipping point in brand perception, making people feel like they’re not just buying a product, they’re joining a story. For advertisers, the takeaway is simple but powerful: if your message doesn’t make someone feel, it certainly won’t make them act.

Dr. Hagood illuminated how affect theory operates far beyond the world of advertising. Accessing human perception is just as vital in politics, pop culture, and even the classroom. Celebrities don’t need to say anything profound to hold attention; their image, tone, and presence do the work. Politicians craft affective atmospheres at rallies where the energy in the room matters more than the specifics of a speech. Professors, too, often win student engagement not by overloading slides with facts, but by generating curiosity, passion, or even tension, emotional cues that make a lecture memorable. Dr. Hagood emphasized that across all these roles, affect isn’t just a layer on top of the message, but more influential than the message itself. It's about generating a vibe, a feeling, a charge in the room that people respond to instinctively. Whether you're teaching a theory, leading a movement, or walking a red carpet, the goal is to make your audience feel something powerful, even if they can’t quite explain why. Affect theory gives us the tools to understand that meaning is derived more from emotional connection than from the message.