Sight: Probably the most commonly-leveraged sense in the history of marketing, our first interaction with any brand is typically with our eyes. But how does appearance affect purchase intent? Well, an experiment by Reimann et al. [3] actually found that customers would choose an unknown (no-name) brand over a known (familiar) brand if the packaging was visually pleasing (i.e. ‘aesthetic’) even if it was more expensive. Anyone who has ever shopped in a liquor store and bought a bottle purely because it was pretty would testify to this.

Smell: Reviewing each of the senses, we find that the sense of smell is the most primitive [4]. It is therefore the most closely linked to our emotions [5]. In fact, the sense of smell for humans begins very early on in the womb [6] — our sense of smell is fully developed by the time we’re 3 months from conception. The area of the brain responsible for olfactory (smell) processing is critical to processing emotion. It’s no wonder then, that smell is a key component in making purchase decisions about products. To extend our previous article that demonstrated how emotions affect purchase behaviour, we can argue that smell can create the emotions that drive these purchase behaviours.

A 1991 study by Hirsch & Gay [7] found that people were more likely to purchase a pair of Nike shoes in a scented environment than in one that was unscented. Another study showed that bakery sales increase by up to 300% when a relevant scent is present [8].

Smells like a good branding opportunity, doesn’t it? No? Fine, we’ll keep the bad puns to a minimum.

Sound: This effect of enhanced sales is not limited to the sense of smell, either. A recent study documented the effect of sound  (music ) on the behaviour of customers in a waiting line. It argued that music, like scent, acts on the area of the brain responsible for emotions. Music can therefore evoke emotions, just as smell can. It has even been shown to alter the perception of time. In fact, music that is fast and familiar is demonstrated to speed up the perceived passage of time [9]. Of course, familiarity is subjective and demographic-dependent, but any company that knows its audience should have a rough idea about their customers’ tastes in music.

A wise company would then explore creating an identifiable sound identity for their brand, wouldn’t they? Yes, they would. Coca-Cola did. Be like Coke.

Touch: Can the sense of touch impact purchase intent? You bet it can. Humans infer a lot of information from touching things. We establish weight, texture, temperature, and hardness of an object simply by touching it [10]. What we infer about the object from touching, however, is subject to our biases. Research has shown that the aesthetics of packaging impacts the perceived value of its contents — in fact, one study found that people would place a higher value on potato chips in hard-to-open packaging than those in easy-to-open packages [11].

Taste: Does taste affect purchase intent? Sort of. It’s often more the case that the other senses of touch, smell, sound, and sight affect perceived taste [11]. For example, a study by Mueller et al. [12] investigated how marketing and sensory aspects affected the preference of wines. They found that both external marketing factors (such as price and packaging) and the smell of the wine had a strong effect on perceived taste, and therefore re-purchase intent. So, yes — in a roundabout way, taste affects purchase intent. But not in the same way that the other senses do. Mostly because you generally have to buy a product in order to taste it. Generally speaking, people don’t evaluate the taste of their next car when they go to buy it.

…Or maybe some do, we don’t know.

So, clearly, if emotions impact the buying process [13], and sensory experiences help create and influence emotions — it obviously follows that a forward-thinking company would engage in multisensory branding, right?

Right, indeed. And some do. Let’s go ahead and look at some brands that are doing it right.