SENSORY Marketing – such an interesting concept that I believed many of us have heard here and there for at least a couple of times.
So, I have some personal experiences wanted to share. Let’s see what we have here.
In simple words, Sensory Marketing includes techniques that involve all human senses: Hearing, Smell, Touch, Sights and Taste. There is one more hidden element but I will talk about it later.
Everytime, I think about Sensory, Hollister CO. always come in my mind. That’s why I want to share it here for all the greatest future marketers. The first time, I visited a store of Hollister CO was in Malmö, Sweden. The feeling is complete different.
I’m telling you, 4 out of 5 Sensory concepts exist at once in Hollister Store. Suddenly, it blew my mind and twisted my bone. The excitement was accelerate to an unbelievable extend. The experience was magnificent.
– SMELL: When you walk in the store, you can smell it. One unite smell through out the whole store. And you can recognize it every single store of Hollister. It’s elegant, strong, fresh, unique perfume smell.
– HEARING: Firstly, around you there’s the sound of sea waves. The high quality sounds give you the feeling you are right there at “California”, Yes, it’s where Hollister CO concepts come from.
Secondly, they play a specific genre of music. Apparently, I haven’t been able to identify the genre. However, they are all very similar and they manage to connect the music very well to the sea waves, blue sight of ocean and fashion styles of the shopkeepers.

 Taken by Russell Lee Klika

– TOUCH:
Firstly, the furniture in the store are made by the same type of woods. In specific area, you can easily find clothes which are made from the same materials.
Secondly, every few meters you walk around, you will see a very small bird’s head which is used as a decoration. The bird’s head is located near your waist so that everytime you were trying to test the clothes, you will accidentally touch the head and apparently you will play with the head a bit by spinning it or so (that’s why I did with my first time in Hollister).

– TASTE: Well, Hollister CO hasn’t managed to bring this up to the customers yet. But if i’m in charged, I would probably start to offer customers Hollister’s own drink.
– SIGHT: Hollister CO did a good job here.
First of all, employees in Hollister CO dress summer clothes. Very interesting style. They are all fresh, tall, stylish and of course, full of summer spirit.
Second of all, in Hollister CO’s store, the light is dim to a darker level in comparison to the light outside. And there’s a spotlight that points at their clothes to focus your attention.
Third of all, there are big screens around the shop that shows the sea in California, everything are blues, just a pure blue background, great scene.
Forth of all, outside the door of Hollister CO’s store, the design are all the same. You can see in the picture attached below
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Those are quite a nice application of Sensory Marketing but well, that’s just the beginning. Last year, as i remembered, there was a presentation of a professor who have met with Steve Jobs and he gave lecture about Sensory Marketing in Sweden. And he did mention about the 6th Sense of Marketing.
What does it really mean by 6th Sense. We don’t really know and it hasn’t been cleared yet. But from Steve Jobs’ perspective, 6th Sense Marketing has always been the ability of the customers to FIND and UNDERSTAND their existence with your product. Yes, as 6th sense is always defined “Your sixth sense tells you that you are not alone”.
Do these information help? I don’t know. But if it ever rings a bell to anyone, businesses and companies would be appreciate if anyone can bring up a new generation of marketing. A new look, a new perspective, may be even a new marketing system.
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Best Prediction is Creation.

 nguồn: http://revolvingfloor.com/

We can take Kinder Surprise or Kinder Egg as an example. You can look at the picture first before continue reading. Sensory Marketing can also be bound to your product as long as you manage to attach the senses to it. In the case of Kinder Egg, we can conclude in the term “Layers and Consistency”:

– TOUCH: The touch sense is embraced strongly in Kinder Egg. Different from Hollister CO, Kinder Egg builds their TOUCH sense with several layers.
(1) Foil Wrap: The egg is cover with the Red & White foil, when customer touch it, they have a certain feeling of what they are touching.
(2) Egg shape: Customer can imagine the product clearly “even” without looking at it
(3) Chocolate Cover: You can feel the chocolate when you touch them.
(4) Internal Plastic Capsule: Inside, there is a plastic capsule which is also very unique shape and touch sense of material (Plastic)
(5) Internal Toy: This is the last layer of touch where customers hold in their hand a hard, cold plastic, painted toy.

The brilliant idea of them was that, customers will expect Layer after layer of touch experiences. The order is from (1) to (5) like above, and if any of this order goes wrong, it will definitely influence the consistent experience of customers.

All these 5 layers combined together created a powerful Touch Sense for their Sensory Marketing approach

– HEARING: Unfortunately, this doesn’t apply to all the products of Kinder Eggs. They don’t really make any sound at all

– SMELL: 
(1) The mixed smell between chocolate and vanilla was chosen in this case.
(2) The toy from Kinder Egg also have its own plastic smell.
=> Layers and Consistency

– SIGHT: This part is also built up with several layers.
(1) Rough Foil: If you have ever bought Kinder Egg from any where, you probably never see an egg with Smooth foil wrap. They tend to have very rough cover.
(2) Red & White Color
(3) The next layer is Brown Chocolate and White Vanilla.
(4) Depending on the series of Kinder Egg that the Plastic Capsule is switched between Yellow or Blue.
=> Layers and Consistency

– TASTE: Yes, they have chocolate cover outside the plastic capsule. Clearly, they have taste for it.
At the moment the taste is still quite simple. I was thinking if they should release a new model of Kinder Egg, in which, you can find an extra piece of candy inside the plastic Capsule.

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That’s another example of using Sensory Marketing. You have in total 5 factors (6 if you can build up the mysterious Sixth Sense)
In my personal opinion, when you design the senses. there are so many approaches you can take as long as the Senses are Consistent.
If you spend some extra time reading about sensory, i do believe you can build up a very unique and extraordinary product.