For many decades, brand identity has been linked with visual cues such as logos, colour palettes, and design aesthetics. Nevertheless, this age-old paradigm is evolving now. Brands are beginning to recognise that identity goes well beyond the visual domain; it encompasses sensory experiences too. Increasingly, companies are exploring how to engage touch, sound, scent, and even taste to nurture deep emotional connections with their target audiences. This approach is not only changing the way consumers experience brands but is also shaping preferences and building loyalty. As a result, multisensory branding is becoming a vital force in the future of marketing, with brands using it more consciously than ever before.
Understanding Brand Perception
Traditionally, firms invested in logos and visuals to create distinguished identities. Given this singular focus, they time and again overlooked the mighty potential of sensory experiences. Nevertheless, the hospitality sector was among the first to tap into the power of multisensory branding. Hotels began experimenting with ambient scents to create unique atmospheres across locations worldwide. Over time, their consistent olfactory signatures helped consumers connect with their chains.
Recent research has further substantiated the positive effects of ambient scent on consumer mood, evaluations, memory, intentions, and behaviour. A comprehensive meta-analysis reveals that exposure to pleasant ambient scents can lead to an impressive 3%–15% surge in customer response levels. This finding explains why many brands are progressively investing in scents as part of a broader multisensory identity.
However, the olfactory journey is just one dimension. Brands are also exploring sound, touch, and taste to create richer sensory connections. This development implies an overarching shift from static brand representation to multisensory experiences that can resonate with modern consumers.
Tapping into the Power of Sound
Sound has been a notable branding tool for many years. Take, for instance, Microsoft’s startup chimes, which have now become embedded in public consciousness. In the same manner, different industries have adopted distinct phonetic branding elements, be it the pop of a soda bottle opening or the timeless tune of a television commercial.
Sound reaches directly into the emotional centres of the brain, eliciting memories and feelings that visual cues alone cannot. In the digital age, this is manifest in the rise of ASMR videos and unboxing clips. These formats engage viewers via subtle auditory stimuli, substantially increasing engagement rates. ASMR videos on platforms like YouTube regularly get millions of views, exhibiting consumers’ appetite for sound-rich content. This kind of auditory immersion has a calculable impact on consumer purchase intent too. The sensory experience makes viewers feel more attuned to the product, which eventually nudges them closer to a buying decision. As a result, brands are charting out sound-led content strategies to drive conversion.
Unlocking the Sense of Smell
Fragrance is another impact-led yet underutilised tool in branding. As per Harvard Professor Venkatesh Murthy, scents are processed by the olfactory bulb, which sends signals to the limbic system, including the amygdala and hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. This implies that a thoughtfully chosen scent in a hotel room or retail store can evoke positive memories and create feelings of familiarity. While this technique so far has been embraced by luxury hospitality and retail chains, it is gaining attention across various industries as brands seek to form emotional ties with their consumers.
Growing Role of Touch and Taste
Touch and taste can be seen as relatively new yet noteworthy additions to sensory branding. The tactile experience of a product, its texture, weight, or temperature can influence consumer perception to a great degree. Research has shown that consumers display a preference for packaging with tactile enhancements, such as Soft Touch and Hi Rise coatings, over packaging with no tactile features. In fact, consumers are willing to pay a 5% premium for products with Soft Touch coatings, perceiving them as more expensive. This proves that tactile elements not just elevate the perceived value of a product but also offer brands a prospect to enhance their image.
Taste branding provides intriguing possibilities as well. A prominent example is MasterCard’s approach at the 2019 New York Food Festival, where they unveiled macarons flavoured with custard apple and Japanese yuzu. The flavours were chosen to underline the brand’s identity. MasterCard further extended this initiative by joining hands with Laudrey, a famous macaron shop, to offer these flavour profiles to audiences. This collaboration not only solidified the brand’s sensory identity but also demonstrated how even a financial services brand can form emotional connections.
Creating Psychological Ownership through Sensory Engagement
At the centre of multisensory branding’s effectiveness is the idea of psychological ownership, which is the feeling that a brand is personally relevant. And so, if a brand is able to engage multiple senses of a consumer, it can nurture this sense of belonging. As a result, consumers often become brand ambassadors and share their experiences on social media platforms.
Building Long-term Brand Loyalty
Sustainable brand loyalty emerges from something more than product satisfaction; it hinges on emotional connections and meaningful experiences. Multisensory branding excels at building these bonds by offering sensory stimuli that evoke joy, elation, or nostalgia. In an overcrowded market where brands compete for attention, multisensory branding provides a channel to create a lasting impression.
In addition to this, multisensory branding also plays an instrumental role in creating consistent brand environments across physical and digital domains. With the rise of technologies like AR and VR, brands now have the ready tools to simulate sensory elements in virtual realms. This means that sensory engagement can also be interspersed with online shopping, virtual events, and brand activations. These innovations can ensure that consumers interact with a brand in a steady way, irrespective of where or how they encounter it.
Looking into the Future
The future of branding is all about integrating multisensory experiences. While sight and sound have been experimented with to a great extent, taste, touch, and smell are becoming vital media. Prominent brands are already working with sensory innovations since this evolution promises increased loyalty as well as inclusive brand relationships.
Summing it up, multisensory branding symbolises a notable transformation in how brands communicate and connect with consumers. Not merely limited to visual logos or static advertisements, branding now necessitates comprehensive sensory experiences. In due time, this approach is going to reshape consumer perception in ways earlier inconceivable.
