“People spend money when and where they feel good”
-Walt Disney
Most brands and products are now interchangeable. This sad statement emanates from one of the fathers of marketing, Philip Kotler.
That a brand is identified, recognized and understood in its values is the core of any strategy, the pressing issue of every marketing manager.
However, in a competitive environment where the use and functional value of a brand (a product or a service) can easily be copied or duplicated, what is left to stand out from the crowd? How can customer preference be triggered to ensure customer loyalty? How can you build, maintain, or strengthen the bond that will closely tie your brand to the consumer and put you ahead of the competition?
These are questions that sensory branding answers: using the senses (and their impact on consumer perceptions) to enrich the brand experience and build its uniqueness and personality, while paving the way for affection, consumer preference and loyalty.
Sensory branding (and sensory marketing) fills the gap left by traditional marketing theories when it comes to responding to today’s consumer mindset. This new type of thinking finds its origins in the 1990s, with the change from the rational mentality that previously prevailed in the consumer decision-making process to the emotional and hedonistic search that now drives their desires and acts of consumption.
Reacting to an increasingly virtual and pressured industrial world, people have begun to search for a way to reconnect with reality in their private sphere, a way to re-enchant their world. Individual values of pleasure, well-being, and hedonism emerged along with a truly new concept of consumption that exposed the limits of traditional marketing theories.
Consumption today is a way of “being”. Like any leisure activity, it becomes a place to express a part of your personality, where you share common values with a small group of other individuals (a tribe). And perhaps more than anything else, acts of consumption must be analyzed as “felt” acts, as experiences capable of providing emotions, sensations and pleasure.
Acts of purchase are driven by this desire for sensational experiences that enliven the senses and drive the emotions. No matter how effective a product is, it is its hedonistic and emotional added value, as well as the distinctive experience it offers, that drive consumers to buy it and ensure their loyalty.
What does it mean from a brand point of view?
First, it means that price and functionality are now taken for granted (or, in other words, not differentiated enough). Now the intangible, irrational and subjective attributes of the brand offer are the new success factors.
Secondly, it highlights that sensations, new experiences and emotions must be part of the brand experience. It is through these 3 channels that the brand can create greater differentiation, influence consumer preference and secure their affection.
In short, focusing the brand strategy on rational arguments about its functional value is no longer enough to ensure success. What is clear is that empowered brands are those that manage to deliver hedonistic and emotional attributes throughout the brand experience. This is where brands can add meaning and therefore value and meaning to products and services, transforming them from interchangeable staples into powerful brands.
This is where sensory branding comes in handy: exploring and revealing how brands can connect with people in a more sensitive way, at this true level of senses and emotions. To put it more clearly, it focuses on exploring, expressing and enhancing the emotional and hedonistic potentials of the brand.
In this theory, sensations prevail because they are a direct link to the affects of consumers. The senses are directly affected by the limbic part of the brain, the area responsible for emotion, pleasure and memory. In a way, it’s not a big surprise. It’s about going back to basics, to what really attracts a human being every day. Meaning is a vital part of our human experience. Almost all of our understanding and perception of the world is experienced through our senses. A growing body of research shows that the more senses your product engages, the greater the brand experience.
While communication and visual identity are primarily focused on sight and hearing, a precise multi-sensory identity that integrates touch, smell (and taste where appropriate), sends a more powerful emotional message to consumers, multiplying connections or contact points through which consumers can be identified. attracted, convinced and touched by the brand. It allows and encourages consumers to “feel” and “experience” the brand (product or service) with their “emotional brain”.
As Martin Lindstrom, author of the best-seller Brand Sense, states, success lies in mastering true sensory synergy between the brand and its message.
The first brand to intuitively implement sensory brand theory was Singapore Airlines. Like any other airline, Singapore Airlines’ communication and promotions focused mainly on cabin comfort, design, food and price. The breakthrough was made when they decided to incorporate the emotional experience of air travel. The brand platform had a simple but quite revolutionary goal: to present Singapore Airlines as an entertainment company. From then on, every detail of the Singapore Airlines travel experience was scrutinized and a new set of branding tools were implemented: from the finest silk and the colors chosen for the staff uniform, to the makeup of the flight attendants. they had to coincide with Singapore. airline brand color scheme; from the drastic selection of flight attendants who had to be representative of the “archetype of Asian beauty”, to the way they had to speak to passengers and serve food in the cabin. Everything had to convey softness and relaxation to transform the Singapore Airlines travel experience into a true sensory journey. Hot on the heels of making the Singapore Airlines flight attendant an iconic figurehead for the brand (the famed “Singapore Girl”), they once again broke the marketing barriers by introducing a new dimension to the brand: a signature scent. They specifically designed a signature scent, called Stefan Floridian Waters. This olfactory signature was used by the crew, mixed with the hot towels served to passengers, and soon permeated the entire fleet of aircraft. Described as soft, exotic and feminine, it was the perfect reflection of the brand and earned instant recognition from Singapore Airlines upon boarding the plane. It soon became a unique and distinctive brand for Singapore Airlines, capable of transmitting a set of memories, all linked to comfort, sophistication and sensuality.
Another example given by Martin Lindstrom is Rolls Royce. To recapture the feel of older “rollers” and maintain the luxurious aura that surrounds the brand, Rolls Royce analyzed and recreated the unique scent of materials such as mahogany, leather and oil that permeated the Silver Cloud’s interior. Rolls-Royce from 1965. Every Rolls Royce that leaves the factory is now fitted with a diffuser on the underside of the car seat to convey this unique brand identity.
What we learn here is that only when all sensory touchpoints between brand and consumer are integrated, evaluated and harnessed can true enrichment of your brand identity be achieved. In the future, it may become the most advanced tool to stand out from the crowd, boosting the brand experience and eventually influencing consumer loyalty.
Today, few brands are really integrating sensory branding into their strategy, while forward-thinking companies are already successfully implementing it. Adding a sensory dimension to the brand experience is sure to become the next competitive asset.
In the future, brand building for marketers may be based on one simple question: how does my brand feel?
To learn more about Sensory Branding services, whether in China or internationally, you can visit Labbrand’s website.
vladimir djurovic
