Sometimes brands are more about one specific sense like touch. But we can’t experience touch when online purchasing. What if we could make a sound “explain” a touch?
How do you market a smell online? How do you interpret smooth vs. rough texture over the radio? How do you make someone salivate over your pasta dish through a billboard ad?
Sensory marketing is all about stimulating the senses by accentuating them.
The really interesting part is that the senses can also stimulate a sense that may be absent.
Sound; The Secret Ingredient
Sound is that special factor of x that can describe pretty much every other sense when done with care and attention. Not saying that there might not be a way with sight or touch; this is just my specialty and I’d hate to “guess” on one that is not.
When we hear a sound, it generally does one of two things; brings us back to an experience or encapsulates us in a new one.
When it brings us back, it uses all parts of that experience to bring and keep us there.
Sound leads us to re-experience the EXPERIENCE!
We smell the air that once was and feel the seat we were sitting on. We taste the popcorn we were eating and re-imagine the view from our past vantage.
Sound gives us back that entire experience.
When we are brought into a new experience because of it, then the same thing is happening except the memories are being created in real time rather than as a call back.
Our brains really are amazing if you think about it. To be able to pull all that sense and emotion into a scenario with just a few notes or a quick sound is remarkable.
How Can Sound Fill In A Gap?
Using this idea of drawing in absent senses with existing ones my brain goes wild with ideas.
What if a cookie maker uses the real life sounds of baking the perfect chocolate chip to pull people to their store.
What if a gym drove traffic through a carefully craft rhythmical sound of machinery being lifted, weights being dropped, and people grunting to the beat.
What if a clothing maker used the subtleties of instrument sounds and intonation to describe their velvets and silks and cottons?
This can all be done and is currently being done!
But I believe- there is more to discover.
Conclusion
Senses are our best friend in marketing. Use them wisely and you’ve nailed the campaign! Use them poorly and you leave the consumer dissatisfied and wanting more.
Dissatisfaction doesn’t always mean a second chance.
Use the senses to your benefit and advantage and create amazing connection inducing content. Your consumer will thank you for it in more ways than one.
