Krishna (2012): An integrative review of sensory marketing: Engaging the senses to affect
perception, judgment and behavior
Sensory marketing = marketing that engages the consumers’ senses and affects their
perception, judgment and behavior.
used to create subconscious triggers that define consumer perceptions of abstract
notions of the product (e.g. its sophistication, quality, elegance, etc.)
Sensation vs. perception Stages of processing of the senses
- Sensation = when the stimulus impinges upon the receptor cells of a sensory organ
biochemical and neurological in nature
- Perception = the awareness/understanding of sensory information
Haptics
- Touch and products
- Touch and generosity
- Products touching products
o Disgust when one disgusting item (e.g. cigarettes or diapers) touches a
normal item, this decreases the appeal of the normal item
Smell
- Memory for scent itself: people are able to recognize scents they have encountered
over very long time periods. The memories for scents exhibit flatter forgetting curves
than other sensory modalities.
- Scent and auto-biographical memories: memories triggered b scent retrieval cues
were rated as more emotional than those evoked by the other types of cues.
- Ambient scent and memory: ambient scent increased recall and recognition of
brands seen.
- Product scent and memory: product scent increases memory for associated
information. Scent enhances recall of verbal information, and scent-based retrieval
cues also increase the facilitative effect of pictures on recall.
Audition
- Sound symbolism: e.g. small bark vs. low frequency growl, macho men and deep
voice
- Language: English as symbol of modernity and sophistication
- Music in advertising:
o Embodied: e.g. faster tempo can evoke more positive feelings
o Referential: e.g. nursery rhyme takes us back to childhood
- Ambient music: French vs. German music and their effect on the choice of wine.
Music also influences for example shopping pace.
- Voice: voice pitch, tones, speech rate, etc. e.g. French accents make perfume more
sexy.