Advertising and marketing communities have clamored for our auditory attention on the radio; they have directed our visual attention to store shelves, billboards and television. In the United States, an average child is exposed to more than 30,000 television commercials a year; the average adult to approximately 86,500. In recent years, advertisers and marketing communities have used sensory branding to bombard our other senses of smell, taste and touch, luring us into trying over 1,000 new brands each year.

Researchers understand that the human brain rarely processes sensory input in isolation. Advertisers and marketers understand that consumers are most receptive to a product when that product appeals to and engages consumers’ multiple senses.

“We store our values, feelings and emotions in memory banks,” says Martin Lindstrom, author of Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound. “The human being has at least five tracks—image, sound, smell, taste and touch that contain more data than one can imagine because they have direct bearing on our emotions. They can fast forward or backtrack at will.”
Our senses help us understand the world around us. Our senses trigger memories and memories influence our emotions. Our sense of smell evokes the strongest of emotions and is the sense most closely linked to memory because it is hard wired to our brains. Seventy-five percent of our emotions are generated by what we smell. Emotions influence behavior – consumer behavior in the global marketplace.

Sensory branding includes the standardized ambience of what customers see (e.g., size, layout, color of lights, staff uniform), what customers hear (e.g., type of music or sound, volume), scents customers smell and where (e.g., in the air, on tissue paper, bags or receipts), what customers taste and what customers touch.

Sensory branding makes its impact each time customers engage with or react to a company’s product or service. By employing scent, sound and material textures in immersive customer experiences, marketers build strong connections with their customers and drive preference for their brands. Sensory branding drives customer satisfaction, but few organizations actually conduct market research or customer surveys to determine the extent of cause and effect.

What appeals to one customer may not appeal to another. An individual might react adversely to a scent by itself, but respond favorably to the same scent when it is used in combination with a particular sound, texture or taste. Customer surveys are adept at teasing out subtle nuances in perception and subsequent interpretation through consumer behavior. Which of the five senses were stimulated? Which messages resonated with customers? What were subsequent customer behaviors?

Customers at Celebration Health, Florida’s Hospitals’ healthcare facility, were cancelling MRI’s in record numbers, resulting in significant revenue loss. Employing strategies in sensory branding, Celebration Health renamed their MRI department ‘Seaside Imaging’, painted beach murals on the walls and added folding lounge chairs. They transformed the MRI machine into a sand castle. Scent Air provided Coconut Beach and Ocean scents. A 50% reduction in cancellations resulted.

Samsung, the consumer electronics giant, pumps a scent smelling like honeydew melon from the ceiling of its retail spaces prompting one visitor to observe, “I love the smell of technology. It smells stimulating.”

Kellogg’s spent years studying the relationship between crunchiness and taste, before patenting the crunch of their cereal. Consumers enjoy every “Snap, Crackle and Pop”, part of the Kellogg’s brand based on auditory stimuli, taste and texture.

“Far from being a practice limited to the few, today multi-sensory merchandising stimulation and sensory branding are separating best practice from good. It is a science. It can be unique to your stores. It can create sub-conscious and unconscious stimulation, suggestion and memory reinforcement and retrieval that are part of your brand DNA, and an important driver of productive outcomes for your business,” observes Peter James Ryan, chief executive navigator, Red Communication.

Some sensory branding campaigns have spinoff products or services. The Westin Hotel chain has a worldwide Sensory Welcome program. A customized soundtrack creates a relaxed mood in the hotels’ public spaces, blending with infused scent and interior design. The company’s White Tea fragrance became so popular it is now sold through the company’s in-room catalogue, its branded website, and in Nordstrom department stores.

The impact of marketing through sensory branding can be measured at every step of the customer relationship. Internally, employee surveys measure the level of employee engagement in the process of sensory branding initiatives. Which marketing managers and operational staff have authority to act on specific aspects of the sensory brand? What organizational structure best supports project teams? How are teams trained and motivated? What are the implications for organizational design – for the communication and coordination among operating groups and implementation teams?

Assessing customer satisfaction or employee satisfaction with various aspects of sensory branding helps inform existing and future business decisions. Have you identified the impact that sensory branding has on your return on investment?

If you would like to learn more about how SSO can help you identify outcomes and be more productive, contact us now at 1-800-756-6168.

Dr. Jan Stringer West, Ph.D.
Research Associate
Survey Software Online