THE USE OF SENSORY MARKETING IN TODAY’S WORLD
The human body has five main types of senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Once these senses are triggered, it sends information to our brain and from there how brain helps us create associations and create perceptions.(Bradford, 2017)Today in every business, the marketing department adapts ways to target customers more to give a positive purchase experience by using all five senses. This method is called “Sensory Experience” (Hussain, 2019). In this article, all these five senses will be explained with a real-life example and a strategy that can used by marketers.
Sight
The sight sense is the most important because it does the most analyzing. As a CEO of a luxury brand stated; “I would say that the eyes 70 or 80 percent of the buying”.(Hulten, 2011) A customer will analyze a product’s size, style and give create a perception on it. The world of today is very visual based. Due to being very visual, the sight sense becomes the most important sense from all five. Two important factors for marketers are the following; The lighting and the colour.
Lighting:
A good lighting motivates clients to analyze more all products displayed in a store. (Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011) For example, a real-life example is ZARA. This retail store has very bright lights. This encourages clients to look at all their stocks and motivate purchases.
Colour:
Colours play an important role in products because it can influence people’s emotions.(Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011). This is why it is important for marketers to carefully select the right colors for their products in order to stand out in the consumer’s eyes. The color black is known to represent luxury. Chanel, Michael Kors, Fendi and many more brands like these have the color black.
Sound
The sense of hearing is what the consumer hears and creates a response of it. It is considered second most important in all senses since it is the only one that can give us any type of signals from every possible direction. (Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011) Marketers use sounds to grab attention. It is mostly used as pleasant jingles, parts of very popular songs known or created tunes. For example, everyone has heard of McDonald’s famous jingle on television or on the radio.
Touch
The sense of touch is anything related to a human’s touch. Although every part of the human body skin can respond to any touch or pressure, hands, fingers, tongues and around the mouth are the most sensitive area. (Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011)
In the marketing world, this method is called the “Tacticle Marketing”. This causes people to interact with the products to a create a great bond between them. (Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011). For example, tactile marketing is when a consumer goes to an Apple store. This person can touch and interact with every apple product therefore allowing a creating of connection between the electronics and the human. This example utilizes pretty much the finger touch and pressure.
Smell
The smell sense is related to emotions and behaviours. When a human likes the smell of something, an instant connection is created thus creating a positive memory. Rahman, A. B. Y. (2020)It allows to relate the smell to a brand’s image. (Hulten, 2011) It is one of the most silent ways of marketing because consumers are right away affected without doing anything. The use of fragrances allows consumers to spend more time and spend more money at the store. The marketers call this method the “Olfactory Method”
Every fragrance used by marketers have their own identity. Lemon and peppermint help by energizing Lavender and cedar reduces stress and tensions.(Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011) For example, spas tend to have the lavender smell since it helps with relaxation. Retail stores like Abercrombie uses a lot of fragrances that matches with their clothing lines.
Taste
The sense of taste is what a consumer’s taste by eating or drinking. A good taste creates a positive customer behaviour (Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. 2011). At Costco, food stands serve a bite of a food or drinks allowing to create a desire to the customers. This is a strategy done by the marketers in order to create a positive feedback before buying the product.
Conclusion
To conclude, businesses spent a lot of money on developing the best outcome with customers. Sensory marketing strategies help create engagement with customers. It is also possible to mix uses sensory strategies together. As recommendation to have the best outcome, it would be helpful to mix all the senses together. Just like Starbucks company. They have coffee house type music, which is relaxing and welcoming, various drinks, great colors, their iconic coffee cup which can bring pleasure and also the coffee smell inside the stores.
By positively influencing the five senses directly, customers are willing to stay longer, purchase more and come back to the store again. Sight marketing is exposed everywhere. Individuals can see it on logos, billboards, product designs and more… If the right sound is played in an advertisement, it will be engraved in people’s memories since it can be appealing. The tactile marketing is very important because it can influence on the purchasing decision. The olfactory marketing helps individuals differentiate between brands and create a positive behaviour. With a positive taste sense, happiness can be created and thus it should not be ignored by the marketers.
Reference
Bradford Alina, (2017) The Five (and More) Senses. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/60752-human-senses.
Eriksson, E., & Larsson, N. (2011). A Multi-Sensory Brand-Experience : Sensorial interplay and its impact on consumers’ touch behaviour (Dissertation). Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-12153
Hulten, Bertil. (2011). Sensory marketing: The multi-sensory brand-experience concept. European Business Review. 23. 256-273. 10.1108/09555341111130245. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270036727_Sensory_marketing_The_multi-sensory_brand-experience_concept
Hussain, S. (2019). Sensory Marketing Strategies and Consumer Behavior: Sensible Selling Using All Five Senses. IUP Journal of Business Strategy, 16(3), 34–44.
Rahman, A. B. Y. (2020, January 14). Is the Way We Experiences Venues Related to the Way Things Smell? Retrieved from https://fortune.com/2019/11/30/science-behind-scent-marketing-brand-smells/
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The use of Sensory Marketing 