Selling Feelings: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Emotional Branding in Coca-Cola, KFC, and McDonald’s Advertising

This paper examines the strategic structuring of emotional appeals in advertising by three global food and beverage brands – Coca-Cola, KFC and McDonald’s. Julien addresses the lacuna between big data modes of computational sentiment analysis and qualitative interpretation to dismantle the “sentimental architectures” through which these brands inculcate consumer preference. A qualitative, and comparative analysis of 21 purposively selected adverts and advertisements selected from 2013–2025. Using Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) and with the assistance of NVivo software, the study methodically analyzed the collaborative interconnections of visual, auditory, and linguistic modes of communication. The discussion suggests that branding of all three brands above uses emotional discourses as opposed to rational ones and operationalizes along a central discursive continuum of community/individual. Despite sharing that underlying mental model, each brand develops its own special emotional space for itself: Coca-Cola with transcendent happiness and nostalgia, KFC with sensual indulgence and comfort, McDonald is with everyday joy and family togetherness. Such an analysis reveals a complex multimodal synergy in which text, image and sound intersect and converge to inscribe brands within cultural ritual. This study argues that these brands do not just sell things, they sell feelings, and they marketize emotions and draw on genuine human emotions in the creation of strong brand identities. The process has serious ideological dimensions; it challenges notions of consumer sovereignty and corporate responsibility in the promotional culture of today.