Today, there are dozens of theories about how best to appeal to customers. One popular method is sensory branding.
Sensory marketing, also known as sensory advertising, is a way to appeal to all five senses of your audience using sensory appeal. It focuses on creating content that uses the senses of sight, touch, sound, smell and taste.
Sensory branding or multisensory marketing is proving to be an effective way to capture an audience and make your brand unforgettable.
Some people enjoy looking at visuals, others like listening to audio, while others are attracted to touch or smell. These sensory appeals can all be utilized in marketing products and services.
In this article, we discuss the sensory marketing definition and answer the question, “What is sensory branding?” We’ll also look at the role it plays in marketing products and services.
What Is Sensory Marketing?
This concept might not be familiar to most people – they would likely ask, “What is sensory marketing?” There might be multiple ways to describe sensory marketing, but the sensory marketing definition stays the same.
Put simply, sensory marketing involves implementing a marketing campaign that appeals to the audience’s five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
Sensory marketing involves many techniques that are used to reach your customer’s senses and influence their behavior based on how your brand and tactics make them feel. Using media senses in advertising and marketing campaigns can greatly influence your audience and their decision to buy your product.
Studies have shown that a particular sensory appeal can influence how a person perceives an object or activity when associated with that sensory experience.
For instance, researchers have discovered that feeling warmth can drive a person to conform. In the same way, opening a Hershey’s Kiss and hearing the foil’s sound elicits positive emotions that the consumer associates with happiness and comfort.
Appealing to the senses is effective in promoting products to consumers, which is why sensory advertising can achieve great results. Senses marketing is a simple yet effective approach towards influencing consumers to purchase a product or service.
What Is Sensory Branding?
Now that we’ve answered the question what is sensory marketing? we can discuss a type of marketing called sensory branding. What is sensory branding and how is it different from sensory marketing? Just like the sensory marketing definition, sensory branding involves appealing to the senses but with a specific aim.
Sensory branding focuses on using one or more sensory appeals to associate with your brand. An example would be how luxury car manufacturer BMW amplifies the engine sounds using the car speakers as a way to demonstrate the car’s power.
When companies identify which sensory appeals they want to use when promoting their products, they have chosen their own method of sensory branding. Multisensory marketing strategies need to fit a certain product. For instance, perfume manufacturers can naturally target the sense of smell. On the other hand, restaurants and food companies can play into a person’s sense of taste. No matter which senses marketing strategy a company ultimately decides on, it needs to fit their brand.
Why Does Sensory Marketing Work?
Today, great marketing is all about the customer experience. This is as true for something like website design as it is for product creation. If the user isn’t having a great time, none of it matters.
As you can imagine, sensory marketing ties into this concept quite nicely.
Because it’s all about enhancing customer experience, sensory marketing has become a go-to tactic for many multinational brands. For example, Abercrombie & Fitch and Dunkin’ Donuts, both used sensory marketing to increase sales at one South Korea outlet by 29 percent.
Sensory marketing provides a complete experience. For this reason, it stands out as a uniquely interactive way to win audience attention. Sometimes, you may need to focus on more than one of the media senses to make a bigger impact and achieve better results.
How To Appeal To Your Audience’s Senses
While Dunkin’ Donuts may seem like an obvious candidate for sensory marketing, you might question your own brand’s suitability for the process. Fortunately, this tactic is very well-suited to a variety of industries. Here’s how to apply it to yours:
Marry Marketing Sense With Emotion
Emotions are playing into marketing more today than they ever have before. If you want to make your customers believe in your brand, you’ve got to start by making an emotional appeal. Brands like Airbnb do this beautifully – their “Belong Anywhere” campaign is a great example.
Think of it this way: The more deeply you can connect emotionally with your readers, the more likely they are to remember your brand. This, in turn, will give you the opportunity to appeal to their other media senses, as well.
Play on the Sense of Smell
When Dunkin’ Donuts used sensory marketing in South Korea, it released a coffee aroma into the air while playing its company jingle. Even if this sounds a little too extreme for your brand, there are still ways to play on your customers’ sense of smell. Two smart options include placing scented ads in major magazines or using a trademark fragrance in your stores.
Smell is a powerful sense, and tests have shown pleasant smells can improve mood by 40 percent. Find a way to incorporate scent into your brand and stick with it.
A note about using smell in your advertising, though: Be sure that whatever scent you use is not overwhelming. While scent has the potential to create positive memories, it has the same potential to repulse your audience. Approached this sense with caution and intention.
Include Sound in Senses Marketing
Sound takes many forms in advertising. It can be State Farm’s “Like a good neighbor…” jingle or a slogan that you can’t get out of your head.
Today, sensory advertising requires that all brands find a way to use sound in their branding efforts. If it sounds difficult, you can trust that there’s always a way to do it.
Consider lingerie giant Victoria’s Secret, for example, which plays classical music in its stores to make customers feel like they’re part of an exclusive shopping experience. In a 2018 study, Mood Media found that 75 percent of customers will stay in a store if they enjoy the music.
Create Marketing Senses for Touch
Touch is a powerful sense, and it’s easy for most brands to capitalize on. There’s virtually always a way for your brand to take advantage of texture. This could mean using heavy, high-quality card stock for your mailed advertisements, or going the extra mile to ensure your products feel good in a customer’s hand.
No matter how you incorporate it, be sure that you’re not overlooking this essential sensory opportunity in your marketing.
Use Visually Appealing Sense Marketing
Sight is, of course, one of the most powerful senses in the world of advertising. Luckily, it’s also one of the easier marketing senses to make the most of. To play up the value of sight, make sure your company website is beautiful and appealing to customers, or hire a professional to design your social media or advertising graphics.
Color is a large component of sight, and brands like Coca-Cola and Virgin Airlines have found ways to use color to promote brand recognition for their products. These brands’ logos are instantly recognizable all over the world.
If you don’t already have a color scheme for your company, now is a great time to create one. Hire a professional web design company if you don’t feel comfortable doing it on your own. Since color says so much about your brand, this is one marketing step that’s well worth investing in.
Sensory Marketing To Help Build Your Brand
Today, taking advantage of sensory marketing is one of the smartest ways for brands to trigger emotion and maintain engagement. What’s more, it’s available to brands in all industries and specialties. So, regardless of whether you sell clothing or tech products, marketing senses is an approach you can use to grow your brand using a multisensory marketing campaign that complements your business.
Designed to place the importance of the customer experience at the forefront, sensory marketing is a powerful method for any company who wants to make its interactions with customers more meaningful and compelling. What’s more, it’s accessible and easy to use, and when you get it right, it has the potential to overhaul your marketing strategy.
To learn more about sensory marketing, or to start using sensory appeal for your brand, contact the experts at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency today.
