Selling sensation: the new marketing territory

Continue reading page |1|2

With ever more pressure to vie for consumer attention, marketers are trademarking in new sensory territory, explains anthropologist David Howes

How are marketers exploiting our senses in new ways?
We're seeing a rise in multisensory marketing, whereby more of the senses ? sometimes all five simultaneously ? are recruited to sell a product. Hotel chains have signature scents; Starbucks has soundtracks to complement the flavour of its coffee. In the past, most marketing passed through the aural and visual channels, and the other senses were neglected. Now the idea is that, with so much competition for consumers' attention, no sense should be left unturned.

In what ways do our senses overlap in our experiences of consumer goods?
It's about associations. Over time, for example, people came to associate the particular shade of blue used by Tiffany's jewellers with luxury. Likewise, in the UK, purple sells chocolate because those who have grown up around Cadbury's Dairy Milk bars associate the colour with gustatory pleasure.

Another example is Corona beer. A study by my team indicated that its popularity among women has to do with the fact that Corona is considered light. It's not technically a light beer, but it comes in a tall, clear bottle and is the colour of sunshine. We have a name for such cross-sensory associations: synaesthesia.

By synaesthesia, do you mean the rare neurological condition in which sensory pathways are linked, so people might taste shapes or associate letters with specific colours?
That's how it is usually described, but synaesthesia also has cultural manifestations. From a marketing point of view those are the most interesting. In "pure" synaesthetes ? those with the neurological condition ? the sensory connections tend to be highly idiosyncratic, differing between individuals. Cultural associations, on the other hand, are shared by populations.

What are examples of cultural synaesthesia?
In China, the colour white is often identified with a harsh, foul odour. In the West, white is usually identified with soft, sweet smells.

Such cultural associations can change over time. Mint was perceived as heating and drying in Western cultures prior to the modern era, now it's more likely to be perceived as cooling and refreshing. And some associations may be universal. To take a well-documented example, most people would say that the word "maluma" sounds like a curvy shape, while "takete" sounds like a sharp-edged one.

To some extent, haven't marketers always exploited these types of associations?
In the past, marketers may have hit on successful combinations intuitively, or by chance. So this showed up in slogans such as "Taste the rainbow" for Skittles sweets, or "Hear the big picture", the tag line for Canada's national radio broadcaster. The idea was simply to catch people's attention by presenting them with a logical conundrum.

Later, sensory stimuli were combined in culturally relevant ways. An example is the US dairy producers' "Got milk?" poster campaign, which depicts celebrities with milk moustaches. In 2006, a twist was added when the scent of cookies was diffused in bus shelters in San Francisco where posters were displayed, to capitalise on the milk-cookie association in American culture.

So this strategy is becoming more deliberate?
These associations are now being investigated more systematically. Marketers want to know why they work. Sometimes this happens retrospectively. To investigate why Corona was popular among women, for instance, we hung out in bars, entered into casual conversations and paid close attention to people's gestures as well as their words. We noticed that women often rubbed their thumb and forefingers together when speaking of what they liked about Corona. This suggested fineness, delicacy. Our research suggested that their preference was down to shape and colour.

From now on, will companies be employing people to simply observe us?
They already are. Ethnography ? the scientific study of culture ? is now emerging as the research method of choice, over focus groups and interviews. It goes beyond what people say, to explore how they actually behave in everyday settings. This allows ethnographers to uncover the implicit perceptual categories that people use to order the world of goods ? as in the Corona example. Another famous example is the practice of adding weight to remote controls, after manufacturers discovered that users tended to perceive heavier remotes as being of higher quality.

Does sensory cross-referencing ever backfire?
Yes. Take the "Got milk?" ad campaign in San Francisco bus shelters. The marketers hoped the association with the cookie scent would be irresistible, but interestingly, a lot of people complained. They felt it encouraged overeating, and that it was insensitive to homeless people.

In another case, responding to a perceived consumer desire for purity, Pepsi marketed a clear cola drink in the 1990s with the slogan, "You've never seen a taste like this". The idea proved popular in the lab, but failed in the real world because people associate cola flavour with a dark, rich colour, so they associated no colour with less flavour. Marketers are now realising that, to avoid these kinds of mistakes, it is important to conduct fieldwork first.

Continue reading page |1|2

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

Have your say

Only subscribers may leave comments on this article. Please log in.

Only personal subscribers may leave comments on this article

Subscribe now to comment.

All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.

If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/316611cf/sc/15/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Carticle0Cmg21929340A0B40A0A0Eselling0Esensation0Ethe0Enew0Emarketing0Eterritory0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

nc state erika van pelt pat robertson hunger games trailer hunger games trailer in plain sight hunger games movie review