Halloween is the one time of the year where we all seek a bit of fear. Whether it’s watching scary movies or dressing up in a ghoulish costume, we love the excitement and adrenalin created by fear. The rest of the year, however, we do everything we can to avoid fear because it sucks the joy out of our lives and compromises our decision-making. This is true not only in our personal lives, but in the way we conduct ourselves at work.

For marketers, fear impacts our decision making at work on three levels; our personal fears, our clients fears, and our audiences’ fears.

Fear plays a major role in both the creation of concepts and the interpretation of concepts. In creating concepts, I must move beyond my own fear in order to address and reassure the fears of my client. If I do not move beyond my fear and instead let it dictate my decision making, it will usually lead to weak concepts and a bad client relationship.

In addition to moving beyond my own fear, I must also address how fear will impact my audiences’ interpretation of the concept. It is important to recognize that fear is one of the most influential drivers of whether we purchase something, particularly in a business buying decision. We may think we are buying for many other reasons, but typically fear has the final word. For this reason, fear can work to our advantage if we ensure that the interpretation of our concept works to address the audiences’ fears.

Ultimately, we must remember that truly cutting edge ideas are almost always a bit scary, but it’s the cutting edge ideas that tear through the clutter. So, maybe we should seek and embrace our fears more than just once a year.