Sensory Marketing: When Does It Work?

If you’ve ever chose a product and noticed how it feels under your touch, you can understand the power of sensory marketing. Manufacturers comprehend its power too, the reason why tactile information like the well-known contour of a Coca-Cola bottle is unique and memorable. Some manufacturers also utilize smell, as in the scratch-and-sniff packaging by Glade and Tide, while others rely on color, such as the trademark brown of UPS or the robin’s egg blue of Tiffany & Co.
In each of these examples the brand’s sensory information stand for a certain meaning for the consumer, and for many brands the combination of sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste is what makes and preserves the brand’s image or personality in a consumer’s mind. Some combinations trigger excitement — think of the Nike swoosh. These customer perceptions often turn into a shared knowledge: Everyone knows that Luna bars are for women, for example.
But brands are experimenting with sensory information in ways consumers might not expect. In the UK, McCain Foods launched a campaign where it released the aroma of baked potatoes in bus shelters. In South Korea, Dunkin Donuts used an atomizer to send coffee aroma whenever the company’s jingle was played on municipal buses. These tactics are done to effect surprise and involve the consumer in a frame not normally associated with such smells. Dunkin Donuts claimed it achieved a 29% increase in sales during the experiment.
However, customers will not absorb such tactics positively for all brands in all conditions. So how do we know when people will accept situations with brand sensory information — and when they won’t?
Some researches provide some of the first evidence that consumer preference can indeed be guided by sensory marketing tactics. In Sync, the effectiveness of a tactic depends highly on a brand’s personality. This proposes that marketers shouldn’t take strict positions on sensory marketing across a wide range of product lines; instead, each product must strategically consider its position in the marketplace. And marketers should not be trapped by the common belief that sensory marketing tactics must always inspire surprise.
For your packaging to wave the right narrative, it must be designed in a planned manner. Think of how creativity in packaging would send your consumer a message in the larger scheme of your brand’s perceived personality. Above all, keep in mind to design accordingly. Use the combined forces of sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell to present your product in a way that enhances your brand’s image — not in a way that breaches it.