Sensory Marketing

By- Manvi Talwar

With the increased exposure to digital marketing strategies like social media
marketing, e-mail marketing and technological advancements like Artificial
Intelligence, marketers often overlook the basic and most fundamental aspect of
appealing the customer towards their product i.e. through their 5 senses.
Sensory Marketing helps in appealing the human senses and providing them
some unforgettable experiences. Nowadays, customers are drowned in tonnes of
advertisements and promotions everyday but they lack the real essence of the
product, therefore it becomes very important to engage the customers through
their emotions and senses.

As emotion is the heart of perception, Sensory Marketing deals in building a

perception of the product in the minds of the customers. The more you engage
the senses, the more of an emotional response your customers will give.

Let’s take a closer look at each sensory marketing 5 senses.

1. Taste

Taste is a very simple and basic concept. It becomes very difficult to make the
customers feel the real taste of a chocolate, pasta or a cake through online
screening. Many of the marketers overlook the impact of providing this real life
experience and hence fail in appealing the customer’s taste sense.
Providing a sample taster of the food items while market testing of a new
product in the market is an effective way of appealing the customers by
developing a favourable taste as well as perception in the minds of the
customers which they can never forget.

Brands like Kellogg’s and Bagrry’s use this strategy to provide sample tasting
of their new products in stalls or super markets to provide the best experience to
their customers and hence convincing them to buy your product.

2. Smell

Smell acts as a first and the most vigilant stimuli in attracting a customer. The
aroma in a coffee shop, pizza shop or a popcorn store instantly grabs the
attention of the people around. This may even tend these people to move inside
the shop and become a potential customer.

Brands like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts use this sensory appeal to make an
impression and perception in the minds of the people and make them remember
their store experience by the pleasant aroma they offer.
 3. Sight

As the picture needs no explanation, it is clearly evident that vision is the most
important stimulus that helps in developing a visual impression in the
customer’s mind. If the first impression goes wrong, the entire experience of the
customer goes even worse.

The marketers need to think beyond attractive shelf displays, packaging and
decorating the interiors of the store. They need to think out of the box to give a
distinctive and memorable experience to the customer when they visit their
stores.
Brands like Apple use this sensory marketing strategy to attract their customers
in an aesthetic white showroom interior by displaying their sleek and stylish
mobiles in an exceptionally beautiful way.

4. Touch

Touch is one another such stimulus that can’t be triggered unless you give a real
life experience to your customers out of their computer screens. Using clean
towels and skin friendly products in a beauty parlour, clean utensils in a
restaurant and even the air that comes in contact of your skin in any of the stores
is an essential part of touch stimulus in sensory marketing.

Many of the online clothing stores often deal with such problems where the
customers do not tend to buy the clothes online because of the lack of touch of
the fabric used.

However this does not mean that online marketing is a failure. Even if it can’t
trigger the touch stimulus, other sensory appeals can be used while using online
mediums of marketing.
 5. Sound

Sound is another very important stimulus in Sensory Marketing. Marketers use

catchy slogans and jingles to make them worth remembering so as to retain their
customers for lifelong.

The most memorable jingles like “Washing Powder Nirma”, “Amul- The taste
of India”and many more are still in the minds of people that help them
distinguish these from the rest of the competitors.

In a similar way, many cafes and salons have now incorporated such sensory
marketing strategy by playing soothing music in the background to give an
exceptionally pleasant and peaceful experience to the customers.

Today, taking advantage of sensory marketing is one of the smartest

ways for brands to trigger emotion and maintain engagement. Sensory
marketing is a powerful method for any company who wants to make its
interactions with customers more meaningful and compelling.
References:
https://alistemarketing.com/blog/5-senses-sensory-marketing/

https://blog.tagtaste.com/building-brands-through-touch-taste-smell-sight-and-sound-
826484da7a14

https://fabrikbrands.com/sensory-marketing/