Month: May 2020

If It’s Mostly Intangible, Can You Still “Market” It?

sensory marketing

In the previous post, we talked about sensory marketing and how it could be applied to products to increase sales and engagements. However, if we were to talk about things that are mostly intangible, could we still apply sensory marketing to them?

Before we answer that, let’s dig deeper into what the intangible items might include. With everything going digital, many tangible products are losing their physical identity and are going online. Such items include e-books, audio-books, online courses, services, or even ideas.

The Economist billboard ad
Have u ever sold an idea?

It is widely known how sensory marketing can boost sales and develop better relationships with the consumers, so how could it be applied to intangible items?

If you’re trying to market a business idea, you could still use additional means to communicate further meaning. For example, using certain concrete words might cause sensory responses in the brain. It could activate specific brain areas and allow your audience to visualise your idea.  Words like “moist” or “rough” might help do the charm.

Another element which could be used to market intangible products is visuals. Most products and services are marketed visually.

The usage of pictures allows for better communication of ideas. Some images could help evoke emotions or feelings in the consumers and have them get a real sense of your message. A lightning bolt, for instance, could cause a sense of fear or a visualisation of pain depending on how it’s used.

One company which leveraged visuals to showcase pain and to communicate its message is Strepsils. It did so by using vivid pictures that stand out and resemble what a sore throat feels like. You could feel the pain in your throat just by looking at the pictures.

Strepsils ad

Moreover, the fact that the e-books are online might eliminate appealing to the sense of touch, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t resort to the other senses such as the visual sense to market it.

For e-books, it is crucial that the cover page grabs the customers’ attention. To do so, cover designs or specific colours could be used. However, they must resonate with the theme of the book as well to make it more memorable.

In addition, intangible products could be marketed for using digital ads. Digital companies or online shops could resort to online advertising to increase their brand’s awareness or online presence. Such companies could also appeal to the sense of sound by using a unique tone or a branded sound whenever a consumer makes a purchase. This will also help differentiate them from their competitors.  

When talking about intangible items, it would seem impossible to incorporate the sense of touch. However, that’s not entirely the case.

Ideas could always be transformed into something physical. There happens to be tons of startups and businesses who managed to incorporate sensory marketing with their business concept.

To achieve that, some of them used business cards. The clever thing about them is the fact that they could hide a secret message which goes in line with their business concept.

To illustrate more, those business cards would appear normal from the top side, but they include a secret message on the bottom. Whenever you touch the card, you can’t help but feel the hidden message embossed or engraved at the bottom of it.

Friction Book Business Card
What could communicate “friction” better than a “rough” card

Another business card example which appeals to the sense of touch is the “Hot Cards”. These cards include an area which could be used to strike a match.

hot business card

Adding the sense of touch factor to these business cards makes the brand or business more memorable.  It will help transform ideas into something concrete.

It is important to note that such sense of touch could also be applied to a book’s dust jacket. To further deliver the message behind the book and what it stands for, the book’s dust jacket could be designed to grab the consumer’s attention. For instance, it could be made from a specific material to evoke certain feelings in the readers and cause the book’s idea to resonate even more within them.

Even though your product is intangible, or even if it might not be a product to begin with, it’s crucial to apply sensory marketing to it and have it appeal to the consumer’s different senses.

By doing so, you’ll be transforming your ideas and making them more memorable. However, it’s important that any marketing effort you try to do remains consistent with your offering and value proposition. 

Marketing Ever “Sense”

Have you ever thought that an ad about gum or batteries would make you cry? Or that a Google ad would make you feel too emotional?

Well, if you haven’t, check out this ad below and think again 🙂

(P.S: It’s based on a true story)

The One Where Google Almost Made Me Cry

Unknowingly, we always come across ads and marketing efforts that do not only appeal to our cognitive abilities, but to our emotions and senses as well.

Marketers have often used ads not to sell products but to tell a story and to evoke feelings and nostalgia. Some brands even use advertising to appeal to our different senses and to establish their brand positioning while doing so. This whole process is referred to as “Sensory Marketing”.

Sensory marketing is a type of marketing which involves using tactics to appeal to the consumer’s five senses in order to achieve a desired behaviour and to attain the brand’s goals.

It can affect the consumers at the acquisition, disposition, or usage stage of the buying process.

When used strategically, sensory marketing can help achieve a sensory signature which communicates the unique selling proposition and the competitive advantage of the product.

Many brands have incorporated it successfully as a mean to boost their company’s sales.  By using a sensory marketing tactic, Dunkin Donuts managed to increase its sales in South Korea by 39% and to enhance its outlets’ visits by 16%. It did so by having commuter buses release a coffee aroma into the air whenever the company’s jingle played over the radio. The buses would then stop near a Dunkin Donuts shop when the jingle ends.

Dunkin Donuts Sensory Ad
All Marketing Begins With the Senses

Every brand can manage to appeal to their consumers’ five senses. It can appeal to the sense of sight by using signature colours or to the sense of smell by using a trademark fragrance in its shops or scented print ads.

However, it’s important to note that some senses are stronger than others. It has been scientifically proven that “smell” serves as a powerful marker to increase memorability when exposed to a given item.

Nike once created a marketing experiment in which it used two pairs of identical Nike shoes to be evaluated by consumers. The first pair was placed in a room with a floral scent and the second was placed in a room without one. It was later shown that about 84% of the people evaluated the shoes in the scented room as better.

Lebron James Nike Ad
Another Sensory Ad from Nike

Brands can also appeal to the hearing sense through jingles or by adding signature sounds to its products like the sharpie’s pen scratch. They can also appeal to the touch sense by using specific materials or package designs. Hershey’s created a whole experience out of un-wrapping their famous Hershey’s kisses.

Hershey's Kisses

Some products or even websites are designed around boosting the consumer’s experience in a way which appeals to their five senses. They are designed in a manner which evokes certain emotions of excitement or luxury and to persuade the consumer to buy them.

Have you ever wondered why sometimes water tastes better in a glass cup than a plastic one? Or how nothing can compare to the smell of a new book or a new car?

Don Draper Quote from Mad Men
– Don Draper

All of these efforts serve as a stimulus to evoke desired emotional responses from the consumers so that the brands can connect with them on an emotional and a deeper level. They are specifically calibrated to alter their consumers’ memories, motivations, desires, and to trigger specific buying decisions.

Also, such efforts manage to increase the brand’s recognition and to establish a special emotional bond with the customers. They help to engage with the audience and to develop deeper relationships with them which would later turn into brand loyalty.

Sensory marketing can be applied for any brand regardless of the industry it’s in. It’s essential to help brands grow and adapt to the constantly changing world.

It’s essential for marketers to realise the significance of sensory marketing and how it has a key role in adding a special perspective to the brand’s identity. It can help to convey the brand’s characteristics through sensory inputs using different marketing stimuli.

Marketing efforts shouldn’t be centered on the visual aspects of the products only but also on the sensory responses they might trigger in the consumers. Such responses act as a driver for consumer behaviour.

It’s important to note that marketing is also about paying attention to the consumers’ subconscious responses. After all, the most powerful messages often lie in what is not being communicated.

Why We Love Lists

check-list

It is often said that humans don’t like to dwell on their thoughts to the point that they might try to avoid anything which might require exerting extra cognitive effort to process. In some cases, humans might even resort to others to think for them, those who are often referred to as “thought leaders”, in our society.

The Thinker Sculpture
Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” on display at the Peabody Essex Museum’s exhibit: “Rodin: Transforming Sculpture.” (Andrea Shea/WBUR)

This notion certainly affects the way people think when encountered with new information.  It might alter the method in which they analyse information or how they consume new bits of data.

In order to tackle this issue, marketers tend to alter their marketing efforts to make them convenient and easy to process.  This gets reflected in content marketing and in info-graphics.

Instragram info-graphic
An Info-graphic Example by Instagram

Marketers usually try to visualise data in a manner which is easy to comprehend so that it wouldn’t cause confusion or any unwanted inferences in the consumers’ brain.  This also helps to build a concrete positioning and image for their brand. 

To avoid confusion, marketers should convey information and visualise the data in a simple manner which doesn’t irritate the consumers. It has to be simple and convenient enough so that it wouldn’t require exerting too much effort.

The information processing methods impact the way consumers view advertisements and marketing efforts. Had the marketers wanted people to actually think about their ad, they need to figure out the optimal choice of words and elements to achieve their goals and engage with their audience. 

Although it could be achieved through several ways, one way to convey data simply is through lists. Using a numbered list to explain the data will certainly allow the consumers to process information effortlessly instead of being overwhelmed with the amount of information.

Lists help to ensure a clear understanding of the message which is being communicated.  This, in turn, requires the writer to be concise when preparing them to communicate the key and most relevant thoughts on the subject.

In addition, lists make information easily remembered and recalled. Instead of writing paragraphs and essays to teach the people how to perform a certain task, marketers can just list the 3 or 5 key things the audience needs to remember. This will make the data seem easier to be applied, as well as aiding in the data retention, thus creating an additional value for the brand.   

Have you ever wondered how to go viral?

(we’ll discuss it in a later post)

viral marketing

Well, one way is to use lists. People view lists as helpful and convenient which makes it more likely to get shared and even to get viral. This is often seen in info-graphics, which are becoming more and more popular for their ability to inform and to communicate a valuable message in a light or an easy manner.

People are drawn to lists innately. When encountered with new information, humans have a tendency to categorise the data in their brain and to derive meaning out of it, so having all of the information listed and organised will surely make the process more convenient and efficient.

Lists help create an easy reading experience. They provide structure and comfort. Also, lists allow for an in-depth understanding of the communicated message.

No matter the nature of the lists, whether it was a shopping list or a list on how to cook pasta, they have a way of standing out and grabbing the user’s attention in a stream of content.

The fact that lists are known to be short, makes people choose and click on them. They also have the effect of leaving the readers more satisfied for lists could be easily finished.

 It is up to marketers to utilise content marketing and adjust their content plan to communicate their message in a manner which is convenient to the consumers and adds value to them.

It could be that adding lists to a marketer’s content plan is the ideal way to build credibility, visibility, and achieve business growth.