A lot of brands miss the power of body language and facial expressions in their content. Body language is the use of nonverbal communication through physical behaviour, expressions, and mannerisms. Nonverbal behaviours can help people relax, create trust, and connect with others. They can, however, confuse others, cause stress, and even create an uncomfortable situation.
Above is an example of a massive missed opportunity! Here’s a breakdown of what’s going on with this model from a body language perspective:
– Slumped posture = Lack of energy, lack of confidence, boredom…
– Hard, staring gaze = Can feel threatening and uncomfortable to the viewer and is associated with anger emotion.
Now, look at the comments next to the image, circled in red. Consumers might not have my language to describe what they see, but they get it!
There’s probably an ideal image from the brand shoot that would do a much better job! Want to discuss some of your content and get my opinion?
Body Language for Business
I had the pleasure of speaking on behalf of Venues of Excellence at their recent Midlands showcase. It was great to show the leisure and hospitality industry how useful body language is not just for guest relations and engagement, but also in their daily work lives.
I walked around the different stands and had a chat with people manning the stands and offered some tips based on optimising their own body language to engage more people as they passed – sometimes it’s the simplest of tweaks that make the biggest of differences.
Service organisations need employees to demonstrate authentic positive emotions to increase service performance (customers’ judgement of employee output) and design authenticity training programmes; nevertheless, these programmes have not shown consistent success.
Despite managerial interventions, inauthenticity is frequent, threatening service success. 2/3’s of customer-employee interactions are inauthentic, according to research. Helping the leisure and hospitality sectors particularly raise their game and training their staff how to display genuine smiles, even when they don’t feel like doing so, creates massive increases in sales and engagement.
Want to know how I do it?
I’ll be back in a few weeks with more body language for brands and businesses. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything specific you’d like my help on.
Adrianne. +44 (0)7841637558
adrianne@thefacewhisperer.co.uk
P.S. If you think any of your colleagues may find this newsletter useful, please do me a favour and share it. Thank you.