Sensory marketing is a strategic tool adopted by brands and companies. This article aims to explain why this tool is important and essential to the reputation of these entities.
When talking about sensory marketing, we are referring to experiences, memories and emotions, we talk about a kind of marketing intended at the way we want the customer to think of a brand by invoking certain sensations. Well along, these sensations – activated through one or more senses, such as smell, taste, touch, hearing and/or vision – will interfere in the decision-making of the consumption of certain products or services.
A practical example of the use of this strategy is McDonald’s.
Sometimes we swear to be able to smell recently fried potatoes, but for the most part, it is nothing more than an identical smell that has nothing to do with this fast-food chain. However, the brain almost automatically associates the smell of french-fries with a happy moment provided by McDonald’s, leading the consumer to suddenly feel a huge desire to experience and taste their favorite menu once again.
This is just one of the multiple companies that make use of this strategic tool because, without a doubt, it can bring numerous benefits.
Some of the benefits may be:
- Creating an emotional and close relationship with the consumer;
- Stimulation in buying a particular product without resorting to aggressive advertising techniques;
- Customer loyalty to the brand;
- Construction of a unique and characteristic identity of the brand.
Sensory marketing and neuromarketing
Also, it´s important to mention that when a company decides to resort to this tool it’s based on neuromarketing, an area of research that seeks to study and understand the consumption patterns and behaviors of the target audience.
These researches increase the neurological studies, that allow to identify which areas of the brain are responsible for decision-making for a particular group of consumers, and that will help the company to decide what type of strategy will be followed in order to achieve its goals, both at the sales level and at the reputational level.
If, on the one hand, neuromarketing is the area responsible for all research, sensory marketing plans practical strategies based on these studies to achieve certain results.
In short, so that this strategy can be worthwhile it is necessary that the brand builds a genuine experience for consumers, that offers real and remarkable moments and that is associated with a happy and positive memory, to enable the construction of emotional ties with the public and then ease the brand loyalty.
Mafalda Ferro, Digital Marketing Trainee
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