Forget Fear, Joyful Marketing Works: Examples From Top Brands [Video]

As the founder and CEO of The Joy Brigade, Shabnam Mogharabi counsels people to rebel with joy.

She’s embraced the strategy herself, doing the research, getting brands to buy in, and executing projects in marked contrast to her journalistic beginnings where she knew “if it bleeds, it leads,” also known as negativity sells.

Shabnam co-founded the mission-driven studio SoulPancake, which focused on uplifting and inspiring content, with actor Rainn Wilson. She served as its CEO for nearly a decade.

But she’s no Pollyanna.

“I think the Pollyanna-look-on-the-bright-side is actually detrimental to harvesting true joy, which requires understanding, feeling, acknowledging the negative points,” she says.

Eliciting true joy requires recognizing the negative while offering a different perspective. “It works in how you tell stories. It works in how you write. It works in how you communicate ideas,” explains Shabnam in our interview after her well-received keynote presentation at Content Marketing World.

Negativity works in marketing, but positive emotions do, too

Negativity, of course, isn’t limited to mainstream …