Understanding the Consumer
Sensory Marketing
Sensory marketing refers to the strategies used to reach consumers’ senses and become influential to their behavior based on the brand and tactics effect on their feelings. The main senses of a human being are; touch, smell, hearing, taste, and sight. In the past two decades, a variety of marketers have been creating expertise by reaching their customers via the five senses that can trigger perception about the brand. Bodily sensations aid in determining decision making. Sensory marketing is more advantageous because; it increases brand recognition in terms of color and scents, it creates a memory in the consumer’s mindset, and it has the capability of generating emotions amongst others. The discussion is going to discuss into details several issues of sensory marketing and ways in which factors such as e-tailing affect sensory marketing.
Functional and rational reasons are not always the motives for an individual to shop; in some circumstances, individuals go for shopping because of non-functional motives. Thus non-functional purpose has a significant effect on consumer’s behavior of consumption. Non-functional motives include; personal and social motivations; Personal entails own, diversion, and self-gratification motives (Tauber, 1972, 46). For instance, an individual goes shopping to relieve stress and reduce tension is a self-gratification motive, another person would go shopping for refreshing purposes and diversity exposure, in this case, it is a diversion motive. Social motivations can be classified into peer group attraction, authority and status, bargaining pleasure, and accompaniment motives. When an individual goes shopping just because she or he is in the company of his friend, it is considered to be an accompaniment motive.
Sensory marketing involves the senses of a consumer and influences their thinking, behavior, and judgment. In a managerial view, it can be induced to form mental stimulations that determine the character of a consumer and her/his general opinions of a product. Sensory triggers attribute to consumer’s self -the creation of the brand characteristics in contrast with those verbally given by the advertiser (Krishna, 2012, 335). Instance, Prices, and numbers can be encoded in different forms that are visual, verbal, and analog. For example, the inclusion of cents ($1799.85 vs. $1799) in a cost’s Arabic encoded form (visual perception) can change how the encoding of the price and its representation verbally in the consumer’s mindset. Verbal encoding of a price that is written influences the assessments of the numerical impact of the cost.
Smell as one of the sensors has a significant influence in attracting customers, for example, in bakery, most of the customers are attracted to it due to the sweet aroma from the cookies being made there, the bakers use these scents intentionally, they locate their ovens in positions where the scent can quickly diffuse and get to the noses of their customers and always ensure it is strong for example by warming cinnamon sheets and sugar in the oven. By so doing, the company ensures a constant increase in its sales (Milotic, 2003, 190). Some companies go the extra mile of printing scents on their products; for example, a strawberry scent on sanitary towels attracts customers who love the strawberry scent even without considering the company.
The smell is linked to a section of the brain that controls emotions and memory. Thus they are likely to trigger involuntary actions and ideas (Milotic, 2003, 180). For example, most women can smell a particular perfume and relate it to a particular positive memory about an individual or an occurrence, and this may attribute to the individual purchasing the product out of the memory trigger. This technique is applied by most marketers to create a memorable incidence in their customers’ minds. There are different types of scent marketing: Aroma billboard, Thematic, Ambient smells, and Signature smells. However, scent marketing is affected when it comes to online shopping; this is because it is not possible to attract customers using the scent technique online. This leads to a loss of customers who are scent-based when it comes to determining which product to buy.
Visual marketing is the most used technique because it tended to be environmentally stimulated. Choosing colors and shapes in the manufacturing of a product and the sales Visual place layout are some of the key factors that can lead to failure or success of a product sale (Roopchund et al., 2016, p. 279). A particular color is related to a certain product in most cases—for example, the red color for Coca Cola Company and yellow color for the Kodak companies. Even without seeing the names of such companies, customers can easily recognize them by the color. Scholars have postulated that sight is a permanent variable in the creation of product awareness and stimulating consumer characters.
Auditory marketing refers to the use of sound. It can influence an individual’s mood and change their purchasing habits. Sound is used in advertising by associating music with a message. It is an efficient way of making the customer keep on remembering it when music or a sound is associated directly with a product itself. A customer perceives it as a sign of familiarity and quality (Roopchund et al., 2016, p. 282). For example, in a bar, most customers would stay longer if there was music compared to when there is none. Another example, when a guitar is played in a rock music shop, fun to this kind of music is likely to be accrued to purchase a guitar since he/she feels that the two go so well.
A sense of touch (tactile marketing) is a technique used to attract customers by the sense of touch. The skin has sense receptors that are easily determined by texture, quantity, and materials of the merchandise. The packaging gives a high power in creating brand awareness, and it gets to a consumer’s unconscious-self, feelings, and perceptions (Roopchund et al., 2016, p. 281)The hands serves as a link between our minds and our surroundings. An example, when a mother is buying a napkin, she always has to feel the texture first; if rough, she abandons it because she perceives that it won’t be comfortable for her baby without considering of what quality it is.
The use of taste for marketing techniques is known as Gustative marketing. We have five different tastes; sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and savory. It is these tastes that give flavor to all the food we consume (Roopchund, 2016, p. 281). Taste merges all other different senses to complete brand experience. Most companies use this technique to attract customers; for example, by giving free-tasting samples, this usually attracts many customers to purchase the product even when not planned for.
In conclusion, the understanding sensory market creates a different perception of how human senses derive a person’s experience. It would be of significant effect if companies strategized these techniques in their operations. Despite embracing advancement in technology, online marketing, for instance, it is advisable no to lose total contact with sensory marketing, which cannot be active online. Most customers are easily convinced to purchase a product irrationally as a result of emotional triggers. A combination of all these sensory techniques can result in a pleasing outcome in terms of attracting customers’ increased sales. Sensory marketing, as discussed, is crucial in creating a customer’s confidence, which is one of the key objectives of any sales company.
Bibliography.
Krishna, A., 2012. An integrative review of sensory marketing: Engaging the senses to affect perception, judgment, and behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), pp.332-351.
Milotic, D., 2003. The impact of fragrance on consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 3(2), pp.179-191.
Roopchund Randhir, Khirodhur Latasha, Panyandee Tooraiven, and Bappoo Monishan, 2016. Analyzing the Impact of Sensory Marketing on Consumers: A Case Study of KFC. Journal of US-China Public Administration, 13(4).
Tauber, E., 1972. Why Do People Shop?. Journal of Marketing, 36(4), p.46.