The things we produce sure look beautiful! This is at least partly true because we are hyper-focused on the way things look. Indeed visual design is a critical element of everything we develop because it has to be attractive! Otherwise it’s not going to be of any interest to people and they’re not going to take it, let alone keep it, and want to know more or engage further.
As human beings we are very sensual creatures in the strictest sense of the word. We are reliant on our five senses to know how to interpret the world around us. It’s interesting though to consider the outsized emphasis we place on the visual appeal of things when there are in fact four other senses that we essentially neglect. To be sure, there are challenges with using each of the other four senses in our marketing, and some senses are more challenging than others.
Probably the most challenging senses to use in marketing are taste and smell. At first you’d think this might be because something has to taste good, so it has to be edible which makes for preservation and transportation challenges. This goes for smell too, because things that are old or expired definitely convey an unpleasant aroma. More challenging however is the fact that people have different taste preferences. You are never going to be able to “cook up” something that will please everyone. There are ways around this though! Lots of swag producers provide edible options, many of which are branded at least on the wrapper, and sometimes on the product itself. There’s the classic candy mix, and not just chocolate although chocolate lends itself particularly well to branding the actual product. There are ample classic savory options too (nuts, chips, other snacks). In a taste sense, the easiest way to go for universal appeal is:
Through quality: A high quality item can often entice anyone to “try” it, even if they’re not enthusiastic about it, or consider it if only on a whim or as a gimmick. Which leads to…
Through novelty: Potentially the novelty of trying it could be part of the experience, the novelty of trying something new (think about adventure and shock value of trying something weird or exotic!).
Through sugar: Many can’t distinguish between something that tastes good and something that tastes sweet (especially in America where everything is so much sweeter!). How often have we devoured something because it was so delicious, and come to the realization only afterward that we didn’t actually like it. Sugar hijacks our brain! Of course this also means that you have to think about the possible association complications, like that food that made me feel poorly after eating it, so now this product makes me feel poorly just for having it!
As for smell, lots of smells are universal. In fact lots of people love the way things smell even if they aren’t interested in tasting those same things. Think about relatively universal smells like:
Baking bread (or baking anything!)
Perfumes (remember that it doesn’t have to be edible!)
The smell of new paper!
Grilled food, and part of the appeal here potentially could be the sound of the sizzle on a skillet
This last example speaks to the incorporation of the sense of hearing into your campaign. We have powerful associations with auditory cues as well. This is why there’s so much focus on the right jingle for a company. We’ve all heard really amazing jingles that in just a couple of notes have become the signature or hallmark of a brand (and that we can’t get out of our head!). We’ve also all heard really awful songs that make us cringe when we hear them, and sometimes make us immediately skip ahead or turn off the device! You have stronger cues than you realize, consider:
The beckoning song of your favorite show—incidentally now with our streaming we have the option to “skip” the opening sequence; you know it’s a well done song or auditory match when you let it play every time!
The reflex of hearing an emergency vehicle siren (hopefully someone needing to pass you, not someone pulling you over!)
The distinctive timing of the sound of Christmas bells
The crunch and crackle in the fall of leaves and dried acorns under foot
If you’ve ever played the game of Life, think about the clicking of the spinner to know how many spaces you can move
The sounds of your athletic terrain (the squeak of basketball shoes, the crunch of a tackle, the lapping water in the pool, etc.)
What a strong emotional reaction each of these elicits! You get really excited… or nervous, or scared… How can you incorporate sound into your campaign? Most people are really self-conscious about the idea of singing together, maybe you can inspire them with a kazoo! If you get them in a group kazooing together, a lot of inhibitions will drop. Plus you can brand a kazoo really inexpensively, which leaves them with a souvenir of a positively associated event, directly tied to you.
And of course don’t neglect the importance of the sense of touch. This has been lost in a lot of ways in the digital world. This is why there’s an entire world of people who insist that print is not dead! Obviously we draw on the sense of touch when we give out soft or furry items, stress balls, keychains, etc. This is one way we draw an intuitive and immediate conclusion about quality—it just FEELS high quality… or cheap! Even with paper though, we have to be sure we’re not wasting an opportunity. There are very different feels for the quality of paper, its weight, the type of finish, and so forth. We can use that sense to shape perception too.
With all of this in mind it’s easy to see how combinations of sensory experiences can become extremely powerful. Anything we can do to combine senses in a single experience will magnify and reinforce that experience… hopefully for the better. Krispy Kreme (famously) added a massive window into the bakery in their stores, to enhance sight (you already could see the doughnut, now you can also see it getting made) and smell (you already could smell the doughnuts, somehow they also smell stronger when you can see behind the scenes). Food items often contain an auditory cue too, such as their wrappers which are some kind of “crinkly.” Scratch and sniff snickers supplement the look of something, and also add something to the feel (texture). Toy items often contain a sound element as well (slap bracelet, fidget toys, etc.); just watch out for utility because remember that if something is only fun and not at all useful, it will not have nearly as much staying power.
So then the ultimate promotional campaign will include ALL FIVE SENSES… Could you produce something beautiful (look) that felt high quality (feel) and smelled distinctive and gave off a sound as you manipulated it… that also tasted universally good?