Multisensory Marketing Research Articles

The power of experiential marketing: exploring the causal relationships among multisensory marketing, brand experience, customer perceived value and brand strength

Providing customers with unique and memorable experiences to establish a positive customer–brand relationship has become one of the key challenges for brand managers. Hence, approaches to experiential marketing that appeal to all senses have increasingly gained attention. However, little is known about how to design multisensory brand experiences that lead to high and sustainable brand strength and provide the customers with a high perceived value. To better understand the causal relationships among multisensory marketing, brand experience, customer perceived value and brand strength, we conducted an empirical study in a distinctive service industry, luxury hotels that provides a good role model for learning about an approach that targets all senses. The results of our study support the assumption that multisensory marketing is an important means to establishing brand experiences. Both are key drivers of customer perceived value and significantly influence the brand strength. Moreover, the identified causal structure reveals relevant insights into the question of which components of customer perceived value (financial, functional, social and individual) are particularly influenced by multisensory marketing and brand experience, establishing brand strength. Hence, the findings provide interesting clues for the design of promising experiential marketing.

A conceptual framework for the assessment of brand congruent sensory modalities

Companies wishing to engage in multisensory marketing by adding previously unused sensory modalities to their brands need to ask how their brand identity translates into these unoccupied modalities. Identifying brand identity congruent sensory modalities in a unisensory fashion is not helpful as multisensory interaction effects change their meaning. Furthermore, existing sensory evaluation techniques do not meet the requirements of marketing managers to serve this purpose. This article addresses this gap by first analysing a multisensory marketing strategy of adding previously unused sensory modalities to an existing brand. Theory supports this strategy, because it enhances the recognition, evaluation and memory of the brand and lets the brand profit from multisensory enhancement. Paramount for this strategy to work is to guarantee the congruency between the newly added sensory modalities with the existing ones of the brand and the brand personality. Therefore, as a second goal, this article proposes a conceptual framework to assess the congruency of sensory modalities in a multisensory semantic context. A three-step process is presented that draws on evaluation techniques used to assess congruency in psychology and the sensory evaluation of food.

Crossmodal Expectations of Tea Color Based on Flavor: A Preliminary Study with Naïve Assessors

AbstractTea is one of the world's most widely and frequently consumed beverages. What is more, tea is a drink that, unlike many others, is purported to have a number of health benefits as well. However, to date, there has been surprisingly little published research concerning the crossmodal associations that people have with tea beverages, specifically regarding tea's distinctive hue. In two experiments, we assessed the beverage colors that Chinese tea drinkers associate with different types of tea tasted while blindfolded. The results revealed that the color names that came to our naïve assessors' minds typically did not match the color names by which the tea is defined (e.g., red or green), or the actual color of the tea that they had just tasted. As such, the tea drinkers' expectations very often were different from the actual color of the beverage that they happened to taste.Practical ApplicationsTea is often defined by a color name, and the extent to which that name matches the tea drinker's experience is investigated in the present study. Our results provide evidence concerning the crossmodal flavor–color correspondences that may exist for tea. These findings will be of interest to those sensory scientists who are interested in the flavor–color associations of beverages. Considering the global popularity, the purported health benefits and the emergence of high‐end tea markets, the findings of the present study are intriguing enough to call for further research on the multisensory marketing of tea in order to align tea drinkers' expectations with their experiences. These findings also have implications for the international marketing of tea, especially for those who are interested in breaking into the Chinese tea market and potentially for those who are interested in promoting Chinese tea in new markets.

Multisensory Marketing: Creating Sustainability Perspective in Various Sectors

Synchronic studies in marketing propose that sensory stimulus, like colour, lighting effects, backdrop music, ambient scents or upholstery’s texture, affect consumers’ evaluation of the milieu, the wares presented and affect consumer behaviour (e.g., approximate amount spent, time spent at a store). A customer is frequently attracted towards a brand based on its sensory experience. In toto, the unexpurgated world is experienced through multiple senses ( Lindstrom, 2005b ). Ingenious brands are discovering means to captivate the entire consumer senses to fortify their brand experience, by amalgamating every sense into the marketing strategy; this approach is called ‘sensory marketing’. Sensory branding is based on the idea that we are most likely to form, retain and revisit memory when all five senses are engaged. Many companies are discovering that when they engage consumers with multiple sensory touch points—not just the traditional sensory channels of sight or hearing—they can enhance customers’ emotional connection with their products and brands. The multisensory strategies seek to go beyond delivering functionality and value to evoking significant personal identification with products. It aims to fill in the lacuna of the conventional marketing. Technology is one of the main factors driving sensory marketing to success. Sensory marketing has made its mark in multiple fields like automobiles, airlines, hospitality, casinos, retail stores, textile, leather production, skin care and cosmetics at multiple levels. The following are a few examples for multisensory applications: 74 per cent of Europeans and 46 per cent of American recognise the Nokia ringtone ( Lindstrom, 2005a ); Ford has a specific branded aroma since 2000. Twenty seven per cent of US consumers and 37 per cent of Europeans consider ford has a distinct smell ( Lindstrom, 2005a ); United Airlines has adapted a famous composition, George Gershwin‘s Rhapsody in Blue, and personalised it; Restaurants play slower music as it creates extended dining hours, increasing 29 per cent of average bill according to an experiment; Heinz launched EZ Squirt Blastin’, Green Ketchup in 2001. They sold over 10 million bottles in the first seven months. That is the highest sales peak in the history of Heinz, all because of a simple colour adjustment. This article deals with use of sensory marketing in various sectors and its potential to develop as a sustainability strategy.

A Conceptual Model: Multisensory Marketing and Destination Branding

The present study conceptualizes a model based on Multisensory Marketing and how it can be used to enhance Destination Branding. The model illustrates the influence of the paradigm shift of mass marketing to personal marketing in the tourism industry. It integrates key sequential steps of Multisensory Marketing, Tourism Sectors, Customer satisfaction as a result of experience to the final outcome: Enhanced Destination Image. The paper also, discusses the relationship between customer experience, customer satisfaction and customer delight. The Destination branding model is a result of synthesis of literature from the fields of general branding, marketing, psychology and consumer behaviour

Creating Multi-Sensory Experiences in Luxury Marketing

Luxury Concept The term “luxury” is routinely used in our everyday life to refer to products, services or a certain lifestyle, yet often without a clear understanding of the luxury concept. Key characteristics of luxury brands include a perceived high price; excellent quality; exclusivity and uniqueness in the sense of scarcity or severe availability; aesthetics of form and colour; a long history and the reputation of a holistic and continuous brand presence; and non-necessity, as symbolic values dominate over the functional characteristics (Dubois et al. 2001): „More than other products, luxury items are bought for what they mean, beyond what they are” (Dubois/Paternault 1995, p. 71). Finally, the luxury concept is strongly related to sensuality: “Luxury defines beauty; it is art applied to functional items. (…) Luxury items provide extra pleasure and flatter all senses at once (…).” (Kapferer 1997, p. 253). Luxury Consumption Values Inspired by the work of Vigneron and Johnson (2004), Wiedmann et al. (2007, 2009) proposed a multidimensional model with four distinct value dimensions for measuring the perceived luxury value of a brand, which provides a comprehensive look at the various functions of luxury brands from the consumer’s perspective. Apart from individual and social motives of luxury consumption, they also take the functional and financial benefits of luxury goods into account. The financial dimension addresses direct monetary aspects, indicating the value of the product or reflecting the opportunity cost (e.g., Ahtola 1984). The functional dimension refers to the core benefits that the consumer expects to gain from a luxury product, such as quality, uniqueness, usability, reliability and durability (e.g., Sheth/Newman/Gross 1991). In contrast to this, the individual dimension relates to the customer’s personal orientation and focuses on the consumption of luxury goods for materialistic aspirations (e.g., Richins/Dawson 1992), hedonic motives, and for strengthening the self-identity (e.g., Vigneron/Johnson 2004; Hirschman/Holbrook 1982). In an interpersonal context, the ownership of luxury goods has a strong social dimension, which leads to benefits based on prestige and conspicuousness within a social group (e.g., Vigneron/Johnson 1999). In the following, these four value dimensions as described above will constitute the basis for a conceptual framework of a multi-sensory marketing approach for luxury brands.