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Bertil Hultn, (2011),"Sensory marketing: the multi-sensory brand-experience concept", European Business
Review, Vol. 23 Iss 3 pp. 256 - 273
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Sensory marketing:
the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept
256
Bertil Hulten
Kalmar University, Kalmar, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present the multi-sensory brand-experience concept in
relation to the human mind and senses. It also seeks to propose a sensory marketing (SM) model of the
multi-sensory brand-experience hypothesis.
Design/methodology/approach This paper applies exploratory and explanatory approaches to
investigating the multi-sensory brand-experience concept within the context of discovery. The
qualitative study is built on primary and secondary data sources, including personal interviews with
experts and managers.
Findings The multi-sensory brand-experience hypothesis suggests that firms should apply sensorial
strategies and three explanatory levels within an SM model. It allows firms through means as sensors,
sensations, and sensory expressions to differentiate and position a brand in the human mind as image.
Research limitations/implications A theoretical implication is that the multi-sensory
brand-experience hypothesis emphasizes the significance of the human mind and senses in
value-generating processes. Another theoretical implication is that the hypothesis illustrates the
shortcomings of the transaction and relationship marketing models in considering the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept. It is worth conducting additional research on the multi-sensory interplay
between the human senses in value-generating processes.
Practical implications The findings offer additional insights to managers on the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept. This research opens up opportunities for managers to identify
emotional/psychological linkages in differentiating, distinguishing and positioning a brand as an image
in the human mind.
Originality/value The main contribution of this research lies in developing the multi-sensory
brand-experience hypothesis within a SM model. It fills a major gap in the marketing literature and
research in stressing the need to rethink conventional marketing models.
Keywords Sensory perception, Brands, Marketing models
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In the current marketing and management literature, a service logic emphasizes
customers as co-producers of service processes (Eiglier and Langeard, 1976; Gronroos,
1982) and creators of value for themselves, according to the value-in-use notion
(Woodruff and Gardial, 1996; Normann, 2001; Vargo and Lusch, 2004). Among
researchers, services are also seen as a form of value creation and not merely as an
activity (Edvardsson et al., 2005). Moreover, a service logic is based on the notion that
customers use all types of resources, including goods and services, as services give them
value and service processes are of an interactive character in supporting
value-generating processes (Gronroos and Ravald, 2009).
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(Pullman and Gross, 2004). Most services marketers have ignored this issue (Morrison
and Crane, 2007), despite the fact that the emotional experience associated with a
services brand seems to be as important as the service itself (Crane et al., 2007). In the
services marketing literature, a number of theorists propose that, in order to maintain
customer loyalty to a services brand, it should be transformed from a services product
into an experience product (Pullman and Gross, 2004).
Furthermore, the environmental context in which the service encounter takes place is
significant in creating emotional connections. This includes the physical and relational
characteristics of the setting in which the service is consumed, as well as the elements
with which the customer interacts in the setting (Gupta and Vajic, 1999). In the physical
context, stimuli appear to be generated by the sights, sounds, textures, and smells of the
environment and, in the relational context, stimuli emanate from people and their
behavior (Carbone and Haeckel, 1994).
In the marketing literature, the concepts of customer experience and customer
experience management are increasingly gaining attention. Pine and Gilmore (1999)
point out the significance of the customer in understanding what an experience is all
about. An experience is said to occur when a firm intentionally constructs one, in order to
engage customers. However, Klaus and Maklan (2007) claim that a firm has no choice
as to whether or not to be connected to customer experiences. All communication,
consumption experiences, and customer contacts inevitably create an experience in the
customers mind (Homburg et al., 2005).
The experiential perspective of consumption experiences originates from Holbrook
and Hirschmann (1982) and Hirschmann and Holbrook (1982). Below is a definition of
experience from Holbrook (1999, pp. 8-9):
Finally, by experience, I mean that consumer value resides not in the product purchased, not
in the brand chosen, not in the object possessed, but rather in the consumption experience(s)
derived therefrom [. . .] In essence, the argument in this direction boils down to the proposition
that all products provide services in their capacity to create need- or want-satisfying
experiences [. . .] In this sense, all marketing is services marketing. This places the role of
experience at a central position in the creation of consumer value.
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understanding of consumer behavior, for instance, how different brain areas are
involved in advertising (Fugate, 2007; Plassman et al., 2007).
Methodology
In the presented research, the context of discovery is appropriate, in that the hypothesis
concerning the multi-sensory brand experience and subsequent SM model lays the
ground for deductive generalizations (Hunt, 2002). For this reason, the paper applies an
explorative, as well as an explanatory approach in investigating the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept. The combination of two approaches has proven a fruitful way
to explore and explain this research domain.
Adopting an explorative approach in the first stage of the research facilitated an
investigation of a research domain that had been relatively unexplored. The important
factors were essentially unknown and could not be defined precisely, resulting in the
research question: at the beginning of the twenty-first century, why are firms once again
focusing on the human senses in marketing? In the second stage of the research, an
explanatory approach was adopted in relation to the research question. As a scientific
answer explanations, should often be connected to why questions. It is clear that an
explanatory approach offers opportunities to develop a model that can explain a current
phenomenon in a scientific way (Hunt, 2002, p. 86).
In both the exploratory and explanatory stages of the present work, the research
process was of an iterative character, allowing the researcher to work back and forth
between data and theory. In the exploratory stage, it was not possible to define exactly
what concepts to look for in advance. No evidence or support was provided by
transaction marketing (TM), relationship marketing (RM) or indeed any other marketing
theories, to explain the concept of multi-sensory brand-experience. The alternative was
to search for psychological and sociological theories that enabled an investigation of
unconventional aspects of marketing. In this research, the combination of field data
collection and analysis, together with theoretical conceptualizations, was appropriate
for developing a model that could explain the multi-sensory brand-experience concept.
The qualitative study is built on a number of primary and secondary information
sources. In the explorative stage, secondary data was collected from sources such as
articles, books, business magazines, reports and other sources from libraries, databases or
web sites. A great deal of information was found, but the significance of the five human
senses for the multi-sensory brand-experience concept was conspicuously absent. This led
to the formulation of the research question. In the explanatory stage, primary data was
collected, including in-depth, open-ended, and semi-structured interviews with experts and
managers, in such American and European companies and organizations as Abercrombie
& Fitch, Apollo, Gina Tricot, ICA Ahold, Ice Hotel, Lindex, Saab Automobile,
Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), Starbucks, Volvo Car, Whole Foods, and Culinary Arts and
Meal Science at Orebro University, among others. A judgment sampling was chosen,
based on the respondents practical experiences of the multi-sensory brand-experience
concept. A questionnaire was prepared before each interview, with unstructured
responses, and this questionnaire was reworked and augmented as the study progressed.
The overall aim of the study structure was to explain the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept in a SM model and context. An additional objective was
to clarify and illustrate the key explanatory levels of how a firm might facilitate
the multi-sensory brand-experience. These levels govern the empirical illustrations
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TM
Marketing
262
Table I.
From transaction and
relationship to SM
Goods logic
Exchange perspective
TM
Strategic marketing Product focus
Customer acquisition
Transactional strategies
Tactical marketing Persuasion and
promotion
One-way communication
Production technology
RM
SM
Service logic
Relationship perspective
RM
Customer focus
Customer retention
Relational strategies
Interaction and interplay
Experiential logic
Brand perspective
SM
Mind and sense focus
Customer treatment
Sensorial strategies
Dialogue and on-line
interactivity
Multi-sensory
communication
Digital technology
Two-way
communication
Information technology
short-term exchanges, and single transactions between an active seller and a passive
buyer (Brodie et al., 1997).
The RM-model is more sophisticated, in terms of RM based on interaction and
network theories and social exchange theories. The model modifies the shortcomings
and simplicity of the TM-model, by focusing on interactions, networks, and
relationships between an active and adaptive seller and buyer (Gummesson, 1999).
Moreover, the model is based on a service logic in which the individual is a customer
within a relationship perspective. The model is built around customer retention,
long-term relationships, two-way communication and personal interactions (Gronroos,
2006), emphasizing a customer-centric view with relationship handling in the focus of
a firms marketing strategy and tactics (El-Ansary, 2005).
Moreover, it is assumed here that the RM-model, through the use of customer
relationship management and customer-specific marketing, has de-personalized
marketing further, instead of getting closer to the customers mind and senses.
In applying these technologies, firms have attempted to build long-term customer
relationships, based on a technically more advanced approach than a personal approach,
one that has aroused criticism (OMalley and Tynan, 2000).
Furthermore, the two models offer limited opportunities to depict the marketing
process of the multi-sensory brand-experience and follow certain logics. In other words, in
the TM-model, the good is dominant, and in the RM-model, the service dominates as a
support for customer processes. Neither model considers the marketing process of either
brand as image, or sensory experiences and what this entails. One weakness is that no
discussion or insights are offered with regard to which means or tools managers can use in
facilitating the multi-sensory brand-experience. Inspired by Gronroos (2009) and his
discussion about the importance of service, where service is seen as a mediating variable
for value creation, the presented model attempts to remedy these shortcomings.
The nature of sensory marketing
A SM model (SM) takes its point of departure in the human mind and senses, where
mental flows, processes and psychological reactions take place and result in a
multi-sensory brand-experience. An individuals personal and subjective interpretation
and understanding of a multi-sensory brand-experience is referred to here as
experiential logic. This means that, for each individual, the logic contributes to
forming behavioral, emotional, cognitive, sensory, or symbolic values (Holbrook, 1999;
Schmitt, 1999).
The experience becomes an image, forming the mental conceptions and perceptions
of interactions and inputs in the service process, which constitutes the final outcome of
the multi-sensory experience within a brand perspective. This perspective is defined
here as an individuals beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and opinions about a brand, based on
the overall experience (Kotler, 2000; Brakus et al., 2009).
In this paper, it is suggested that the SM-model differs from the TM and RM-models,
through its emphasis on the multi-sensory brand-experience. In the latter two models,
the good or service is emphasized, but not the multi-sensory brand-experience of goods
or services or other elements within a brand perspective. The SM-model offers a firm the
opportunity to differentiate and express a brand as image through sensorial strategies,
including sensors, sensations, and sensory expressions, based on cognitive, emotional,
or value-based elements in relation to the human mind and senses. This relates to how
to position a product in the sense of positioning is what you do to the mind of the
prospect (Ries and Trout, 1982). The imprints a firm leaves, in order to distinguish and
express itself, can then be related to a deeper, individual emotional level.
Against this background, the multi-sensory brand-experience hypothesis implies
the need for a SM model highlighting the significance of the human senses in reaching
the customers mind at a deeper level than the TM- and RM-models. In explaining why
firms focus on the human senses, this present study identifies three explanatory levels
within a SM model, i.e. sensorial strategies expressed through sensors, sensations, and
sensory expressions. There is no doubt that the number of potential means is infinite at
each level, indicating that the model allows ample choice in the marketing process. The
number of explanatory levels has been limited to only three, in order to make a
classification that facilitates the construction of the model. Furthermore, each level
contains a number of choices with respect to offering multi-sensory brand-experiences
in a SM model and context (Figure 1).
The aim is to simplify the process, by grouping possible choices together into the three
key explanatory levels of means. Moreover, the aim of the classification was to offer an
exhaustive classification, when no other could be found in the marketing literature.
A general assumption made here is that the three levels are, paradoxically, both related to
and independent of each other. They can simultaneously occur jointly or independently of
each other, but also be identified separately. Furthermore, at each level, different elements
or factors as tools can be applied in the marketing process, allowing differentiation and
variety. Finally, there is a mutual interdependence between different kinds of means,
creating regularity in one or more patterns of SM performance in the marketing process.
Sensorial strategies aim at differentiating and expressing a product, service or firms
identity in relation to the human mind and senses. A strategy is defined as sensorial,
when it appeals to a certain sense or senses in the customers mind. The reason for a firm
to develop sensorial strategies is to distinguish a brand from competing ones, especially
when such functional/rational attributes as price or quality are often the same.
Hence, sensorial strategies are based more on emotional/psychological elements than
functional attributes in clarifying a brands identity and values. The main purpose of
sensorial strategies is to facilitate the multi-sensory brand-experience expressed
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Sensorial strategies
in relation to the five human senses
Sensors
264
Scent
sensors
Sound
sensors
Sight
sensors
Taste
sensors
Touch
sensors
Sensations
Atmospheric
Auditory
Visual
Gastronomic
Tactile
Sensory expressions
in relation to smell, sound, sight, taste and touch
Figure 1.
A SM model
Customer equity
et al. (2009)
Source: Developed from Hulten
through means as sensors, sensations, and sensory expressions in relation to the five
human senses (Table II).
As an explanatory level, sensors aim at communicating sensations and sensory
expressions that reinforce the multi-sensory brand experience for the customer. A sensor
is defined as a communicative means, when it transmits sensations or sensory expressions
(stimuli) or receives information (signals) via devices, equipment, material, or employees
in relation to the customer. The reason for a firm to use sensors is to obtain a multi-sensory
communication platform, including promotion, such as traditional advertising, in
differentiating a brand. This reinforces the multi-sensory brand-experience on a daily
basis in servicescapes, as well as in virtual settings.
As an explanatory level, sensations aim at expressing a brands identity and values as
something distinctive and sensorial, in facilitating the multi-sensory brand experience.
A sensation is defined as an emotion or feeling that deliberately links the human mind
and the senses. The reason for a firm to distinguish and express a good or service as a
sensation, is to be observed by customers. This is especially relevant, since the human
senses continually notice every small change in the environment, either as a threat
Sensors
Sensations
Sensory expressions
Smell sensors
Atmospheric
Sound sensors
Auditory
Sight sensors
Visual
Taste sensors
Gastronomic
Touch sensors
Tactile
Sensorial strategies for smell, sound, sight, taste, and touch have been recognized by the
studied companies. Especially, a sight strategy is considered as one of the most
significant ones in expressing a brands identity and value. A CEO of a fashion chain
expressed it as follows:
What the eyes see is extremely important. I would say that the eyes do 70 or 80 percent of the
buying. This is enormously important to bear in mind.
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Table II.
Sensors, sensations and
sensory expressions
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This philosophy has permeated all the elements that might be included in a sensory
experience of the brand. The colors black and white are used in all stores, as well as other
marketing channels and the lighting has to be strong in order to make the stores visible
from outside.
Design, packaging and style can be seen as the ultimate sensory expression of
individualization in differentiating a brands soft values. A challenge for many
industries is to let high-tech products become more human, and the Finnish producer
of mobile phones, Nokia, illustrates just this:
Nokia has chosen to design its phones with soft values in mind in order to appeal to human senses.
The main rationale has been to move away from the hard values that technology conventionally
stands for. This has been a way to make the mobile phones more user-friendly by giving each
product an identity and soul. Nokias big screen and soft buttons have been designed for this
purpose and the ability to change the colour of a phone suggests increased individualization.
A sight strategy also emphasizes the significance of such sensory expressions as color,
light, and theme, as well as graphics, exterior, and interior. All are emphasized in
visualizing a brands identity and values.
A sensorial smell strategy is applied to allow a scent to become an element of a
brands identity and image. Scents contribute to creating memory pictures, a positive
atmosphere and wellbeing among both customers and employees. Removing unpleasant
smells from the interior of a car to make it more pleasant to get into and use was
described in an interview with the Volvo marketing department in Gothenburg, Sweden:
We put a lot of effort into making the car smell good when one enters it. The new S80 and all
of our other cars are adapted for allergenic environments. The S80 is recommended by the
Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association. When the car is opened with the hand control, the
air is sucked out, as there is otherwise always an accumulation of the smell of plastic. This
indicates the development work in this area, which is quite enormous.
Other motives for a smell strategy are to accomplish a positive smell experience and
impact on customers emotional state and mood. A scent experience can also lend a
natural connection to a brand through sensory expressions like product congruency and
the intensity of a scent. Scents can also improve the recognition and recall of a brand
through such sensory expressions as signature scents or a scent brand.
A sensorial sound strategy is used to reinforce the identity and image of a brand.
Sound, and especially music, as sensory expressions, attach meaning to people and is a
source of inspiration. Music from a mans or a womans youth are often used to create
memories. The American retailer Abercrombie & Fitch illustrates a sound strategy:
The signature sound at Abercrombie & Fitch is expressed through famous songs which have
been mixed to create the right atmosphere in the service landscape. A heavy bass is represented
in every song characterizes the firms music. The music played is very loud and gives the
impression of a night club. The songs are mixed to build up expectation that something more is
under way. There are no gaps between the tracks and therefore the tempo level and sound
pressure are constant in the store. Customers like the music and many dance in time to it.
Employees also dance, which gives the relaxed feeling of party and of living it up.
As sensory experiences, jingles and voices also contribute to the sound experience of a
brand. How the Swedish retail fashion Lindex uses jingles and TV commercials to
reinforce the image of the brand was expressed in an interview:
We adjust it depending on the season and the jingle was adapted to the current theme and
season. When the seasonal theme Fashion Report Paris was relevant at a certain time,
an accordion sound was added to the jingle to create the feeling of Paris. The accordion sound
was so subtle that customers had to focus carefully to notice it. Other than these seasonal
variations, the jingle was consistent.
A sensorial sound strategy also emphasizes the significance of such sensory expressions
as atmosphere, theme, and attentiveness, often used in creating a sound experience.
Sound can also be protected legally as a sound brand and used as a signature sound with
a distinct character.
As a sensorial strategy, taste includes much more than the actual flavor and relates
to such sensory expressions as interplay, symbiosis and synergy, emphasizing the
significance of other senses. An expert in the area expressed this in an interview:
Customers call it taste, but it is everything: how it looks, smells, feels, and sounds. All this, the
customer more or less merges into the concept of taste.
For this reason, a taste strategy might be more related to the customers multi-sensory
brand-experience, and a taste experience can include such other sensory expressions as
scent, sound, design or texture, that build on the interplay and synergies between
different senses.
Moreover, former experiences in terms of brand image are essential for a taste
strategy, so that it is not only the actual quality of a product that matters. This concept
was illustrated by the following comment in an interview:
You have other expectations of, for instance, Coca-Cola or Virgin. There are classic studies
that directly show the importance of the experience. Simply because a brand is strong, a Coca
Cola drinker, for example, perceives it as different from other colas. This is a perception that
is, of course, used in marketing.
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In a sensorial smell strategy, the atmospheric sensations and their sensory expressions welcome
customers to the servicescapes with a soft intensity and at the entrance, there is a bakery with an
oven spreading product-congruence scents of newly-baked bread as smell sensors. No artificial
scents are used and the natural scents from fruit and cheese offer smell experiences as sensors.
In a sensorial sound strategy, auditory sensations and their sensory expressions appear as
pop music with soft voices, through such sound sensors as stereos and loudspeakers and the
choice of music, which make it possible to say that the company has a signature sound.
In a sensorial sight strategy, visual sensations and their sensory expressions belong to the
interior with light colors like olive-green and yellow on the walls. The lighting is comfortable,
with spotlights as sights sensors aimed at special products, and style through colors and
lighting expresses proximity to nature. Handwritten information as sensors, give the graphic
feeling of a more personal sight experience.
In a sensorial taste strategy, gastronomic sensations and their sensory expressions reinforce
the taste experience through the interplay of other senses that allow synergies through staff
who wear aprons as taste sensors, which emphasize a homely feeling and superb food. The
company offers the presentation of real samples of tastes that are related to season and theme.
This creates a setting where food thinking is part of the interior and invites customers to
gain more knowledge, delight in and experience new tastes.
Finally, in a sensorial touch strategy, tactile sensations and their sensory expressions invite
customers to touch the products, because they are accessible in dishes or straw baskets that
emphasize personal contact as touch sensors. No plastic material is used, and cold and hot
foods are chosen by the customers themselves. There is a cheese room as a touch sensor with
stable doors to keep the temperature at the right level for the taste experience.
in the human mind as an image. A firm can use sensorial strategies expressed through
sensors, sensations and sensory expressions in relation to the five human senses in leaving
imprints of a good or service. Through a value-generating process, the multi-sensory
brand-experience offers behavioral, emotional, cognitive, sensorial, or symbolic value at a
deeper, more internal level than the TM and RM models. In this regard, a smell, sound,
vision, taste or touch can reinforce a positive feeling, following the experiential logic, that
generates a certain value to the individual and, in particular, creates a brand image.
An important theoretical implication is that the multi-sensory brand-experience is the
ultimate outcome of a value-generating process between a supplier and a customer. The
value to the customer is embedded in the multi-sensory brand-experience and the customer
generates the value individually as a sole-creator in the human mind (Grronroos, 2006, 2008).
Through this process, with its sensory imprints, a good or a service becomes the experience
which is based on individual and personalized perceptions. It relates to defining the
process in itself as a service to the customer (Gronroos, 2006), in which sensorial strategies
play an important role for a firm in facilitating the multi-sensory brand-experience.
Another theoretical implication is that the multi-sensory brand-experience is central to
branding, as a result of value creation and value-generating processes (de Chernatony and
Segal-Horn, 2003; de Chernatony et al., 2006). So far, the branding literature has not taken
into consideration the multi-sensory brand-experience and its impact on what constitutes
a brand through the five senses, as an image in the human mind. It is possible to argue that
the multi-sensory brand-experience should be the basis for brand building and brand
identity in creating brand as image and loyalty.
In managerial terms, the findings yield new insights into applying the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept in practice. Its focus on the human mind and senses enables
managers to identify emotional/psychological connections in differentiating and
distinguishing a brands identity and values to customers. To date, these connections
have been more or less limited to advertising and the sense of sight, but in a multi-sensory
brand-experience, the senses of smell, sound, taste, and touch are also significant.
A sensory manual covering the five human senses should be developed, in which
sensorial strategies expressed through sensors, sensations, and sensory expressions as
means, could be identified in providing a brands personal imprint to the customers. This
can guide managers in building and establishing successful multi-sensory brand-experience
relationships, in contrast to more conventional and limited brand relationships.
Future research needs to be conducted on these issues, and the validity of the
framework must be investigated further. Research is also required on developing
appropriate measures for managing the multi-sensory brand-experience, concerning
outcome and performance. Finally, it would be useful to conduct research on the
multi-sensory interplay between the human senses in value-generating processes.
It should be noted that research on the multi-sensory brand-experience concept is
still in its infancy. This paper provides an exploratory overview of the multi-sensory
brand-experience concept within a SM model, which questions conventional marketing
models.
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Further reading
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missing fundamental premise or the need for stronger theory, Marketing Theory, Vol. 6
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Corresponding author
Bertil Hulten can be contacted at: bertil.hulten@inu.se
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