Sensory marketing- What can we learn from food and beverages industry

The use of sensory approach to communicate brands’ identity is on the rise. For example, it’s been said that scent marketing– the use of smell to enhance sensory experience– is now a multi billion dollar business. Companies devoted to perfume creation and scenting solutions flourish all over the world. However, there is still a long way to go when it comes to addition of a multi‐sensory approach to brand identity building and reinforcement. In a study by Heartbeats International, when asked what senses brands were appealing to, sight and sound were the most mentioned. That’s why most brands are still in the era of the “sight and sound marketing paradigm”, or, as Lindstrom so well wrote, most brands are communicating on a 2‐D based experience. Despite the long way to go and the recent breakthroughs in the sensory marketing field, there is an industry that is well familiar with the use of sensory processes to develop products and communicate with consumers: “food & beverages”. Well, that’s not big news, you might say. In fact, brands in the food and beverages business need to work sensory elements,taste being considered the most obvious. However and maybe because of this need, these brands seem to have discovered senses well before anyone else and some of them are riding the wave of sensory marketing.

[...] .0/ or send a letter to Creative e Commons, 17 71 Second Stre eet, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 9410 05, USA. Pedro Ferreira Sensory Marketing: what can we learn from food and beverages industry? The use of sensory approach to communicate brands’ identity is on the rise. For example, it’s been said that scent marketing – the use of smell to enhance sensory experience – is now a multi‐ billion dollar business1. Companies devoted to perfume creation and scenting solutions flourish all over the world. However, there is still a long way to go when it comes to include a multi‐sensory approach to brand identity building and reinforcement. In a study by Heartbeats International, when asked what senses brands were appealing to, sight and sound were the most mentioned2. That’s why most brands are still in the era of the “sight and sound marketing paradigm”, or, as Lindstrom so well wrote, most brands are communicating on a 2‐D based experience3. Despite the long way to go and the recent breakthroughs in the sensory marketing field, there is an industry that is well familiar with the use of sensory processes to develop products and communicate with consumers: “food & beverages”. Well, that’s not big news, you might say. And you’re right. In fact, brands in the food and beverages business need to work sensory elements, being taste the most obvious. However and maybe because of this need, these brands seem to have discovered senses well before anyone else and some of them are riding the wave of sensory marketing. So, in terms of sensory marketing, foods & beverages brands may have something to teach us about how to engage consumers through their senses. Here you have the top‐6 reasons to “watch and learn” from the food & beverages industry: #1 – Senses are allies, not enemies This is probably the most obvious – but still important – lesson from food and beverages. And they have learned it quite soon. Taste and smell are the two chemical senses that we have and they are destined to work together. So if you lose, even momentarily, your sense of smell, you will also be diminished in your ability to taste things. Surely you've experienced this when picking flu. For food and beverages sensory professionals this means that they have to manage these two senses together, bound them in a way that taste and smell sensory stimuli are congruent and transmit the same message to the consumers’ brain. Phillips, Sue (2011) Environmental Scenting. Multi‐sensory branding with fragrance, Glow. The magazine about beauty, health and wellness, Spring/Summer, pp. 122‐126 2 Hearbeats International, Sounds Like Branding 3 Lindstrom, Martin (2005) Brandsense, New York, Free Press 1 Copyright © 2011 by Pedro Ferreira 2 Pedro Ferreira Sensory Marketing: what can we learn from food and beverages industry? A research with chips show that only chips scent (congruent scent) has the potential to influencing consumers’ pleasure and arousal level. This means that if chips smells like, say, chocolate, consumers might feel confused and distrustful4. But the interplay between senses doesn’t stop here. Another research study found that the sound of classical music enhanced the quality of wine tasting5; a similar result was found for drinking tea6. Thus, when thinking of a sensory approach to marketing your brand you might want to consider the interplay between senses, because sensory cues work together not apart when forming perceptions. And you don’t want to have the wrong sensory cues attached to your brand, believe me! This teaches us that we should work several senses together in a congruent and integrated fashion. Don’t focus and rely on just one sense. #2 – Look beyond the obvious Although food and beverages brands work the “obvious” senses, they also extend their R&D activities to the not so obvious sensory cues. The well known cereals from Kellogs are a good example. Rice KrispiesTM have the classic “snap, crackle, pop” sound that every cereal consumer loves to feel. The taste is great, so they say, but did you know the crunch of the Kellogg’s cornflake was carefully developed in sound labs? Hansen, Bruun‐Christensen & Schauman (s.d.) Consumers’ emotions, cognition and approach/avoidance behaviour in relation to scented food products, Working Paper 5 Areni, C. & Kim, D. (1993) The Influence of Background Music on Shopping Behavior, Classical Versus Top‐ Forty Music in a Wine Store, Advances in Consumer Research, Vol 20, pp. 336‐340 6 North, A.C. and Hargreaves, D.J. (1996) The Effects of Music on Responses to a Dining Area, Journal of Environmental Psychology 16: 55–64 4 Copyright © 2011 by Pedro Ferreira 3 Pedro Ferreira Sensory Marketing: what can we learn from food and beverages industry? [...]