RETAIL MANAGEMENT TERM PAPER

On

SENSORY BRANDING IN RETAIL ENVIRONMENT

SUBMITTED BY
SRAVANI .G (09245)

SHALINI.E.S (09248)

SUPRIYA.M (09249)

SOLOMON VICTOR (09014)

M.S.TEJASWEE (09015)

SRUTHI.S (09016)
 CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: ......................................................................................................................... 3

SENSORY BRANDING: ............................................................................................................... 3

SENSORY ELEMENTS: ............................................................................................................... 4

BRANDING WITH SENSES: ....................................................................................................... 5

DELIGHTING CUSTOMERS THROUGH SENSORY BRANDING: ...................................... 12

RETAIL BRANDING THROUGH SENSORY EXPERIENCE: ................................................ 14

WHAT ROLE CAN SENSORY BRANDING PLAY IN ONLINE SELLING? ........................ 18

CASE ON SENSORY EXPERIENCE-WILLIAMS SONOMA ................................................. 18

CONCLUSION: ............................................................................................................................ 21

REFERENCES: ............................................................................................................................ 22

2
INTRODUCTION:

Many brands have woken up to the importance of marketing activity that appeals to all
five senses, rather than just the traditional senses of sight and sound. Research proves that touch
and taste have an equally important impact on the purchasing decisions and brand loyalty of
consumers. And surprisingly, smell is the most important sense as it has an instant impact
straight on the cortex limbic system - the part of the brain controlling emotion and memory
(cortex is rational thought) - and can emotionally affect a person up to 75% more than any other
sense.

Brands such as British Airways, Coca Cola and Mercedes Benz are waking up to these
discoveries. Today they are thinking more about how their products and marketing activity can
reach and satisfy all the senses, rather than just creating the latest clever advertising campaign
starring today‟s talk of the town celebrity. And more big brands are looking to engineer their
product so it appeals to all the senses.

In practical terms this means they are focusing on improving the physical touch and feel
of their products (Marks and Spencer), introducing patented smells (Singapore Airlines) that can
be associated with them as a company, or utilizing food within their marketing (think of the
latest and very popular Skoda „cake car‟ advert.)

Sterile TV and print advertising is increasingly replaced by experiential marketing, with

consumers actually interacting with the product and human beings. A minor revolution is set to
take place. If creating a digital strategy was the key objective of the last decade, then „brand
sensing‟ will be dominating in the coming years.

SENSORY BRANDING:

Sensory branding is based on the idea that we are most likely to form, retain and revisit
memory when all five senses are engaged. By going beyond the traditional marketing media of

3
sight and (sometimes) sound, brands can establish a stronger and longer-lasting emotional
connection with consumers.
Sensory branding is another way of describing the form and function of all marketing
communication, which aims to create awareness and influence consumer behavior via the
various sensory channels leading to the brain. Moreover, the tools available to the marketer to
create and interpret meanings can be traced back to classical rhetoric. Brands are less about the
material benefits of goods and services, than about the meanings and emotions they trigger in the
hearts and minds of consumers.

Branding not only influences the choice of goods and services, but extends to the realms
of politics, social activism, and personal identity, shaping our views of the world and of each
other. The power of brand communication to move huge masses of people to feel, think, and act-
proves that the ancient art of persuasion is alive and well in our time.

SENSORY ELEMENTS:

The various sensory elements are

Sight: Sight is the most seductive sense and often overrules the other senses.
Sound: Sound is connected to mood and only 4% of Fortune 500 brands use

sound online.

Touch: Skin is the largest organ in the body which alerts us to a sense of well

being or pain. It tests the texture of products and

experiences the sense.

Smell: It strongly influences taste and is 10,000 times more

sensitive than taste.

4
Taste: One may like sweet, salty, sour or bitter. Taste is hard to introduce but

is highly effective.

These sensory elements create or evoke memories, alter moods, create

sensations, establish associations, establish emotional bonds, enhance the product (or service)
experience, create buzz and interest in sharing experiences with others thereby increasing the
product usage or promoting the product switching by creating a meaningful and lasting
differentiation.

BRANDING WITH SENSES:

SIGHT:

Sight is the most used sense in branding, as it is the most stimulated by the environment.
Visualization as a strategy for the sight sense means creating brand awareness and establishing
an image of a product or a brand that in turn sharpens the customer's sensory experiences. The
picture a firm wants to convey of itself then contributes to its identity and is the basis for the
image customers have of it.

A firm's or a brand's identity, as a distinguishing characteristic, is often expressed

through different aesthetic elements in marketing such as advertising, visual and verbal identity,
design, and style, but also through electronic media, internet homepages, or employees. In many
circumstances for example, in the case of commodities a visualized identity can help customers
recognize a brand.

The sight sense and the visual system lets us discover changes and differences when we
see a new design, a different package, or a new shop inferior. A picture is formed on the retina of
the eye, where contrasts and differences are reinforced with regard to color and shape, for
example. Every picture formed is compared with previous experiences and memories. For this

5
reason a sight strategy rests upon a number of visual sight expressions, each of which, alone or
together, can clarify goods and services as well as the service landscape. Expressions such as
design, packaging, and style are often more closely associated with goods than with services. On
the other hand, expressions such as color, light, and theme can occur in both goods and service
encounters, which is also true for expressions such as graphic, exterior and interior.

Colours and shapes are the first way of identification and differentiation. Many brands
are associated to a specific colour, which is then memorized more easily in the consumers‟
unconscious. Eg. Coca Cola is red, Kodak is yellow. According to memory retention studies,
consumers are up to 78% more likely to remember a message printed in colour that in black and
white. In the food and beverage industry, the impact of colours is obvious and sharply defined.
The following statement sums up the characteristics of each colour and their impact on consumer
behavior.

6
SMELL:

Smells invoke memories and appeal directly to feelings without first being filtered and
analyzed by the brain, which is how the remaining four senses are processed. We all recognize
and are emotionally stimulated by, say, the scent of freshly cut grass, brackish sea air, or the
perfume of roses. Smell pays attention to a brand and creates a good atmosphere thereby
increasing the customer's well-being. The smell sense is closely related to our emotional life, and
scents can strongly affect our emotions. A human being can remember more than 10,000
different scents, and the perception of a scent experienced earlier is enough for us to associate it
with earlier memories.

7
 Scents can contribute to sensory experiences that create lasting memory pictures in the
customer and build awareness and create an image of a brand both temporarily and long term.
This can happen through short-term activities, where the role of the scent is to create attention
around a product or a brand, or long-term strategies, where the scent becomes a major element of
the identity of a firm. Differences between men and women regarding the perception of scents
explain why sex as an expression also is of great importance in considering an appropriate
sensorial strategy for the smell sense. In contrast, subtle scents can affect an individual more
unconsciously.

In a service situation, for example, scents can increase the well being of customers and
contribute to a good atmosphere. Scents can also have a positive impact on customers' loyalty to
a firm. The scents of vanilla and Clementine, in particular, affect customers' behavior by making
them unconsciously stay longer in service landscapes such as shops or supermarkets than they
would otherwise have done. Scents also improve the recall and the recognition of a brand. Some
firms try to connect specific scents to their brands through what are called signature scents. This
connection can also be made through a legal scent brand, whereby a firm uses a scent alone as a
registered trade mark.

Some supermarkets in Northern Europe are connected to bakeries by hundreds of meters

of pipeline. The pipes carry the aroma of fresh bread to the stores' entrances. The strategy works.
Passers-by are struck with hunger and drawn inside the shop. A major British bank introduced
freshly brewed coffee to its branches with the intention of making customers feel at home. The
familiar smell relaxes the bank's customers, not an emotion you'd normally associate with such
an establishment.

SOUND:

Sound evokes memory and emotion. Most people attach a meaning to sound, and music
as a source of inspiration and is often used as a way to shape a person's identity. From birth,
babies achieve a better understanding and perception of reality through sound. More and more
firms are realizing that sound can be a strategy to strengthen the identity and image of a brand.
Sound expressions such as jingles, voice, and music offer possibilities to create a sound

8
experience. Such expressions can also be used to create advertency around a product or a brand.
Sound often through music is taken into consideration when service landscapes such as shops
and supermarkets are trying to create a good atmosphere.

Sound has the power to impact our mood and sway our buying habits. Researchers have
found that the pace of background music affects customer perceptions of wait time, spending and
turnover in stores and restaurants. Fast music decreases spending in a retail environment, but
increases turnover in restaurants. For restaurants more concerned with increasing the spend-per-
customer ratio, slower music creates longer dining times, leading to a 29 percent increase in the
average bill according to one experiment.

Companies choose music congruent with their brand identity. When sound is directly
linked to the product itself, consumers may interpret it as a sign of quality or familiarity.
Kellogg‟s takes full advantage of the sound element. Its Rice Kris pies have the classic “snap,
crackle, pop,” but the crunch of the Kellogg‟s cornflake was carefully developed in sound labs.
By introducing a distinctive sound to its breakfast cereal, the company integrated four senses into
its product: taste, touch, sight and sound.

In the 1970s, IBM launched a silent typewriter that was rejected by users who felt
uncomfortable with the new quiet machine. As a result, IBM added electronic sounds to replace
the natural noise it had worked to eliminate. The same phenomenon occurred in recent history,
when camera developers added an artificial shutter click so that the photographers could feel sure
it was working. And in the Camera Phone Predator Alert Act, introduced in the House in January
2009, one legislator even suggests that camera phones should be required by law to sound a tone
to prevent surreptitious picture taking.

McDonald‟s recent short “I‟m loving it‟ tunes get trapped in our heads and help
consumers remember a product. Microsoft‟s start-up sound for Windows and some other sounds
achieve trademark-worthy status by chance, becoming part of our familiar sound culture after
years of use. Others, like the four chord progression that plays at Windows Vista startup, are
painstakingly developed as purposeful, definitive brand marks.

9
TASTE:

Taste sense is one of our most distinct emotional senses. This fact is often expressed in
everyday life through concepts such as sweet, sour, and a matter of taste, we use the taste buds
on the tongue to sense tastes. To strengthen a firm's or a brand's identity, taste experiences of
different kinds can contribute to creating an image of a product or a brand. It does not matter
whether a firm or a brand naturally attracts the taste sense with its products. Thus, tastes can
work as a spice for a brand to give it further dimensions.

When firms are providing drink and food, this is a common way to interact with
customers and facilitate their sensory experiences. It can also happen in situations where rival
firms compete with products that are similar in terms of price and quality. In these cases tastes
can differentiate one firm's brand. For example, food, drink, or confectionery is added to attract
customers and get their attention. Sense expressions such as name, presentation, and knowledge
are important and contribute to the taste experiences of customers. Knowledge about how, for
example, different tastes and taste compositions react together can make the sensory experience
of the individual deeper and more meaningful. It is also important to consider how food and
drink are presented to customers.

It has been shown that descriptive names can increase the sale of particular dishes by
nearly 30 percent at restaurants. Moreover, a taste experience can be dependent on how different
senses for example, smell, sight, and touch interact in a symbiosis, which can lead to synergies
for a much stronger taste experience. The taste an individual perceives comprises much more
than only the brand's actual taste; it includes scent, sound, design, and texture. For this reason,
the concept of "taste" is often more related to the customer's whole sensory experience than to
just what is put in the mouth. The visitors can not only be tempted to buy the product
impulsively, but also it raises the chances that they trust the brand in the future, becoming loyal
customers.

TOUCH:

Touch sense is the tactile sense by which we have physical contact with the surrounding

10
world and can investigate three-dimensional objects. The touch sense also contributes to building
a form sense that tells us whether an object is sharp, hard, or round, say. In this regard, it is not
necessary for us to touch the object itself. It makes it possible for customers really to feel and
touch a brand.

Our hands are an important link between our brains and world. In fact, as humans we
have more tactile receptors in our little fingers alone than we do on our entire back. These
receptors help us explore objects in our surroundings. When we encounter a pleasant touch, the
brain releases a hormone called oxytocin, leading to feelings of well-being and calm. In research
terms, this sense of touch is referred to as our haptic sense. It is found that shoppers who touch a
product are more likely to purchase, even as it relates to impulse buys. They‟ve also found,
logically, that the ability to touch a product increases our confidence in the item‟s quality.

Most firms have not yet realized the significance of the human senses for a sustainable
marketing, but brands that contribute to unique touch experiences have good opportunities to
create an identity and image around a product in terms of tactile marketing. Brands can be
clarified through tactile sense expressions such as material and surface in product and service
landscapes, and also through temperature and weight. One example is that heavy objects usually
are associated with high quality. Other sense expressions of importance for the touch experience
are form and stability, of which the well-known green Coca Cola bottle is an excellent example
in terms of its unique shape.

For physical interaction with customers to be possible requires that a firm's products are
available in physical form. Customers must have the option to touch, squeeze, turn, and invert
different products. The encouragement of touching can lead to customers being willing to
interact with products they usually do not notice. It increases the chances for impulse buying or
unplanned purchases. The touch experience is also of importance in purchasing and consuming
services. This fact is often recognized, for example, through soft chairs for comfort at a travel
company and through hard chairs and tables at a fast-food restaurant. Finally, it is important to
note that digital technology offers increased possibilities to create realistic touch experiences
during product development. Digital technology can produce a touch experience through

11
simulated pressure and vibrations, for example, for aircraft, cars, or videogames. Technology is
also available that stretches the skin when a digital object is touched, which makes it possible to
replicate the sense of touching something that is visualized on a screen. Clothes must be felt and
tried on for size, color, texture, and so on. Physical proximity to product is elemental to purchase
decisions. Shopping behavior depends on it.

Singapore Airlines has demonstrated an understanding of the psychological importance

of the senses in establishing and maintaining customer impressions. By appealing to all senses
(music, fragrance, manner, and demeanor mingle in the cabin to evoke the airline's image), the
airline has created a branded flying experience.

DELIGHTING CUSTOMERS THROUGH SENSORY BRANDING:

In today‟s fast changing and fiercely competitive world, a product, an ad or an ambience

has to offer a high quality, fascinating, and alluring experience to attract customers, as in case of
showrooms, advertisements, road shows, restaurants, hotels, theme parks, brands, web sites,
software interfaces, etc. A superior, welcoming and captivating experience is also necessary in
an office, as well as, in today‟s context, the cyber office, to facilitate increased efficiency and
productivity and reduced stress. Similarly, an equally warm, affectionate and cozy experience of
the ambience is desirable in homes to help relax and recharge or even entertain.

Businesses today have to continuously reinvent themselves to provide newer offerings

and experiences to keep their customers interested. They have to persistently delight, surprise
and mystify them. They have to make them fall in love with the experience and further make
them lust for it. And this has to begin from the very first interface that the customers encounter –
the ambience, the product. Also, what one wears, the colors put on, how they carry it, the smells,
and etc. creates the personal ambience that gives an experience about the business to the outer
world. A pleasant personal ambience is also desirable to create a memorable, and hence repeat
worthy experience, and to achieve good rapport, or to present us amicably, as in important
meetings, or for retailing as in the front-end staff, fashion shows, etc.

12
 Today, while designing an interface, the permanent elements as well as the sensorial
stimulants are mostly kept fixed or have very little flexibility, mainly because of the costs
involved both in terms of money and time and the overall logistics. Thus, we see that most
interfaces provide a fixed or constant ambience – that is, it gives a similar kind of feeling every
time one enters or interacts with it. This constancy of ambience leads to monotony and reduced
interest value. This can lead to, depending on where it is located, reduced customers – reduced
business, lower efficiency and productivity, increased stress etc. On the other hand, a dynamic
ambience generates an interest value and helps increase repeat customers and, therefore,
business, and helps overcome monotony and brings vibrancy, liveliness and an element of
astonishment in a given interface.

A Dynamic Multi-sensory Experience uses all the various sensory stimulants (like light,
sound and others) either individually or in appropriate combinations to create, alter or, if so
desired, periodically or continually recast/transform the prevailing perception -the experience of
a given interface. Thus, making the interface more vibrant and dynamic and breaking the
monotony/constancy of a conventional interface obtained by the use of permanent/fixed elements
only. By manipulating the various sensory stimulants (like light, sound, etc.) that invade on our
50+ senses, a Dynamic Multi-sensory experience can be created. This is achieved by
manipulating the sensory stimulants but not alteration/modification in the existing
permanent/fixed elements in the given interface is required. Hence, one can generate varied and
different types of changeable interfaces superimposed over the existing interface made up of the
fixed elements. Thus, this adds variety to the way the given interface is perceived at a very
nominal cost compared with the changing of all the fixed elements.

Multi-sensory experiences are helpful wherever there are interfaces- products, branding,
retail, and indoor or outdoors and even cyberspaces and virtual reality or even in interiors of
aircrafts and automobiles, as also in advertisements, corporate offices, corporate identities, etc.
Good experiences can help enhance anything that the business uses to interface with the
customers. They can be the products, retail shops, malls, theme parks, gardens, theatres,
restaurants, hotels, offices, homes, hospitals, operation theatres, patient rooms, e-retail sites, web
sites, user interfaces, virtual reality, RVR spaces, Promotions, Ads, Brands, and so on.

13
RETAIL BRANDING THROUGH SENSORY EXPERIENCE:

For retailers “brand” consists of both the brand image of the products being sold and the
brand presentation of the store itself. A retail brand is the design and presentation of a building.
It is whether you can deliver the product in a timely and consistent way. It is the company policy
on returns and exchanges, whether the store has parking, comfort level of the store when
consumers shop, employees attitude, how they dress and smile, how they assist when consumers
browse, their knowledge of the products, and how they say “thank you” in a way that makes
consumers feel wanted and appreciated. For retailers, the store experience is the brand.

Ultimately, a product brand comes down to the customers‟ belief in the quality or the
value of the product. A retail brand comes down to the overall experience of the customer in the
store of which product quality or value is only one part. Retail brands form fixed points in the
consumers‟ lives. They represent trust, reliability, quality and prestige. At core, retail brands are
also a promise of performance which consumers expect to be able to rely on: it is a promise
which consumers insist to be kept. For this they are prepared to pay a little extra, a price
premium. Since strong retail brands bind their customers to them emotionally, they are able to
withstand fluctuations in demand due to their customers‟ loyalty. Top retail brands have to be
emotionalized, authentic and, above all, differentiated.

In the retail business storeowners, marketers, and retail designers are all concerned with
the successful branding of a store where people come to visit, shop and stay longer to entertain
themselves. Studies have shown that there are factors that affect visitors' perception of the store
and their preference over other places. Store location, atmosphere, emotional attributes, sensory
stimulation attributes, and visual merchandising are contributing factors to the visual perception
and behavioral responses of the visitors and customers. Few of these studies were concerned
with the overall experience of a store through customers' sensory perception. Customers' sensory
experience provides a positive influence on their shopping experience. So, branding in retail
design is important and can be primarily induced by sensory experience. The retail store as a
branded environment extends the experience of a brand through three-dimensional space.

In a store, customers come to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste products on display as
well as their environmental surroundings. Sensory experience in a retail store plays a significant
14
role in consumers' perception and their purchasing behavior because of its positive influence on
the brand image. Ultimately, the need to create a unique brand experience through sensory
stimulation is essential to the practice in the field of interior design. While providing the sensory
experience in the retail environment few aspects must be kept in mind. They are what kind of
sensory experience must the retail environment provide, how can retail brands communicate with
the human senses to create positive sensory feelings, what are the retail design components, and
how can they create a positive sensory effect on customers. For this one has to design a prototype
by analyzing, developing, and visualizing a newly developed space for an existing retail store.

Let us see how the five senses help in designing a retail store.

Sight: The first thing that motivates a consumer to walk into a store is how the store
„looks‟. A welcoming and friendly store always scores a plus over those which are not. Bright
colours, well-placed merchandise and in-store advertisements, all go into working for creating
that „sight‟ for a consumer. For example, in a furniture store, facts and helpful tips by interior
designers can be put up next to merchandise to aid the consumers. They can see, read and take
informed decisions.

Sound: Cacophony and chaos is not something that a retailer should ever associate
his/her store with. Neither is silence a good option. Indulging the sense of sound through
pleasing music (in accordance with the merchandise and brand concept) is a must. At an apparel
store for young adults, fashion shows on screens and tips by stylists can be aired in the store to
help shoppers select clothes for themselves. Interviews or quotes by famous authors can be
played at bookstores to educate the customers on what books to pick up.

Smell: A pleasing smell always adds to the ambience of a store. Musty odours or strong
paint fumes can act as a deterrent for clients. A visual merchandiser while working in accordance
to the retailer‟s details should always keep in mind the sense of smell of a shopper; especially in
the case of an F&B outlet, where bad odour is just unacceptable. A good odour is definitely a
bonus to the store, it may not be remembered always, but its absence shall surely be
remembered.

15
 Touch: This is a tricky sense to indulge in, but most vital. For today‟s quality-conscious
consumer it is more than a necessity to be able to „feel‟ the merchandise. Be it in trying on
clothes in the trial room, or testing a perfume with a tester, holding a porcelain vase, feeling the
texture of a glass table or judging the sturdiness of a hammock, the client should always be made
to feel at home when it comes to the sense of „touch‟.

Taste: Not all retail stores can hope at utilizing the sense of taste. But for those who can,
like chocolate stores, candy stores, F&B outlets, snack and juice bars should aim at always
treating the sense of „taste‟ of their consumers. On the house samples for tasting, free dishes or
drinks on certain amount of purchases or sweets and chocolates for kids at any other kind of
store are a few ways the retailer can indulge in the sense of taste of the consumer.

Pampering the five senses of the consumers ensures a sensory shopping experience for
them. Working out the visual merchandising of a store with this end in mind can work wonders
for a brand.

From the moment the brand registers or connects with the customer, the store itself must
strive to engage all five human senses. Drawing the customer into the store and engaging the
customers‟ senses on merchandise. Touch, taste, smell, vision and hearing all create powerful
visceral reactions. Smell is the most powerful sense because it triggers memory and emotion and
smart retailers take advantage. Costco put bakeries in front, to take advantage of the connection
between baking and comfort. In Oakley stores, large screen televisions display sports scenes
showing the company gear in action. Clothing stores use music that appeals to target customers.
The louder the music, the younger is the customer. Some brands appeal to the senses through the
“theater of retail experience”, engaging the customer in some activity that enriches the buying
experience.

Starbucks is also generally considered to be a best-practice example of an experience-

based brand, built up with a deliberately constrained budget. Starbucks recipe for building up a
store brand is based on uniformly high product quality and an appeal to the consumers‟ sensory
organs-the relaxed atmosphere and discreet background music. This strategy has enabled
Starbucks to develop within a very short period of time from being a provider of various types of
coffee into a full service provider with regard to coffee and associated products.

16
 Even in the tough times like the economic slowdown, stores must not compromise on the
experience and intimacy that they provide to the customers and must try to be more efficient.
Victoria‟s Secret uses small, cozy stores, unobtrusive mirrors to create a sense of intimacy. In a
Crate and Barrel store the light woods and large open windows create a monolithic, clean and
stylized atmosphere that showcases its products in a simple and elegant manner. The visual
merchandising of Abercrombie and Fitch mimics the untidy, laissez faire attitude of its target
market.

Chocolaterie Stam, located in Ames, Iowa is a guide for practitioners, marketers, and
designers who strive to create a memorable, successful, and attractive store environment. The
design analysis and design development focuses on the branding vision. Sensory perception is
considered key determinant of the users' perception in the retail environment. Design
visualization of the space is mainly focused on vision as the dominant human sensory stimulus
and its connection with the other human senses. The prototype might be useful as a design
guideline for store designers and marketers when creating a new brand identity through the
application of environmental graphics, brand logo, typography, brand color, package design, and
other graphic system components. The design approach encourages the close relationship of
incorporating graphic design principles and their application to interior design.

When a customer walks into a Williams-Sonoma store, she gets a feeling of walking into
a kitchen. It usually smells like food because there‟s a cooking demonstration or samples being
offered; customers‟ sense of taste are also tickled by these. Kitchen furnishings are used for
displays, fabrics cover many surfaces, and aprons are worn by the staff, engaging the visual and
tactile senses. It‟s a full-sensory experience.

The successful design of a retail store would affect visitors and customers' positive
experience over the brand and increase the client's business for their brand expansion. The final
design shows the potential use of the prototype in other design applications that are essential to
the positioning of a brand and its perception through sensory experience.

17
WHAT ROLE CAN SENSORY BRANDING PLAY IN ONLINE SELLING?

Most have no physical environment in which they can sell, no taste they can experience
and no associated smell. Most are stuck with the look, and occasionally the sound of their
customer interface. The problem that the marketers of online brands have is not much on the lack
of opportunities for sensory contact with their customers, but their over emphasis on the digital
customer interface. Most important is the actual physical delivery of the product; be it a book,
ticket or insurance documents.

E-retailers are only limited by their imagination. The physical delivery of the product
presents an opportunity to appeal to a customer‟s sense of smell, touch, sight, sound and even
touch. Yet many online brands will simply settle for a cheaply branded box with which to „get
the product out.‟ Using better quality, scented packaging would help to deliver a large increase in
brand loyalty and demand. Many online brands have got themselves stuck in a mindset that
because they operate online, they should only be marketing online through the likes of Google,
banners and affinity marketing.

Pure online brands need to make an extra special effort to utilize forms of marketing that
allow all the senses to be reached and stimulated. At an instant, it can provide potential
customers with a long term promotional device that looks fun, smells nice and feels good. Online
brands should start their marketing planning by thinking about direct mail and experiential
marketing. The uncommon goods which do not have physical locations engages its customers‟
senses through its multi-media website. Sound files let you hear what an alarm clock sounds
like; videos show you what products do when they‟re turned on. An immersive, entertaining
shopping experience comes from engaging as many senses as possible.

CASE ON SENSORY EXPERIENCE-WILLIAMS SONOMA

Williams-Sonoma Inc. is a multibillion-dollar retailer that offers products for every room
in the home. It expanded beyond the kitchen with the 1982 launch of Gardener's Eden (which
was sold in 1999) and Hold Everything in 1983, the same year the company went public. The

18
company continued to grow, adding Pottery Barn in 1986, and later Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery
Barn Bed and Bath, Chambers, and West Elm.

Upon entry, you're immersed in the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of all that is great
about the kitchen. It's a sensory experience that welcomes customers and entices them to buy.
Williams-Sonoma has perfected the art of retailing -- offering customers great products, great
service, and an inviting atmosphere in which to shop.

Product Differentiation:

For the first ten years, products sold in Williams-Sonoma were more or less French, with
most of the inventory being heavy professional French copper pots and pans, souffle dishes, au
gratin dishes, omelet pans, sauté pans, etc. -- items that were not very familiar to most American
cooks. Gradually, Williams began to bring in other items from Europe like Italian pasta machines
and German bakeware items. His search for high-quality items was the result of his
dissatisfaction with the quality of many of the items available in the U.S. for home chefs.
"Customers couldn't buy a professional knife unless they knew about restaurant supply shops,"
explained Williams. Although Williams offered his customers a range of product from around
the world, he was also the first to make Calphalon professional cookware available to the home
cook, and continues to be on the forefront of introducing American cooks to products they hadn't
previously been exposed to. This also extended to many specialty foods. During those early
ventures to France, Williams took the opportunity to find food items not sold in the U.S.,
including extra-virgin olive oils from France, Dijon mustard, and jams and preserves that were
made differently than here in the U.S. He enjoyed introducing a product that was made by a
small company in small quantities. "However, today it isn't as easy to find new items to carry,"
said Williams. "Whereas in the first 20–25 years, there was so much out there that hadn't been
discovered by the American home chef. Today, that is no longer true and it remains a big
challenge." Besides introducing an item that is totally new to the market, Williams sees growth
in developing something that improves on a product that may have been in the market for 70 or
80 years. "What is helpful when working with a manufacturer on developing an improvement is
that we have so many stores and our mail order business.” Unfortunately, it also reduces the
opportunity to work with suppliers who are unable to supply the quantity of merchandise that a

19
company of our size requires. When we do find something that is done by a small manufacturer,
it is a challenge to work with them to ensure that they can supply our needs." When asked about
the biggest surprise product that he brought into the stores, Williams notes the chicken water jug.
While drinking whiskey and water with an American friend at the Hotel Hassler in Rome about
20 years ago, the water was served in a water jug in the shape of a chicken. He found the mug to
be amusing and eventually, located the manufacturer and brought it in. The item has been
available ever since. "I've always been attracted to items that have an interesting story to them,"
said Williams. "Another example is White Cat popcorn, which we have sold for many years." As
William tells it, "The cat that appeared on the tin was the family cat on the farm where the corn
was grown. The white cat would sit on the front porch sunning itself watching the workmen on
the farm brining in the corn. So they named the popcorn White Cat Popcorn." Williams agrees
that it does require a certain amount of newness to keep the business interesting. "It takes
understanding how a product is made, its purpose, and how it performs. It is extremely important
that our employees know that because more often than not, these are the questions the customers
will ask. It is up to our employees not only to welcome the customer, but to have the ability to
tell the story of a product, to make it more interesting, and to provide more information than just
the appearance."

The Magic of Merchandising:

Great product that is explained by educated staff is made even more enticing through
great merchandising. And that is what Williams-Sonoma captures so well in each store. The
smell of bread baking often serves as a backdrop for all of the wonderful sights and sounds
visitors can experience in the store. Aside from impeccably clean and organized shelves that
make it easy to locate product, small themed vignettes set up throughout the store are designed to
capture customers' attention. Barbecue accessories aren't simply stacked on a table or
merchandised on the wall -- instead, a vignette transports the customer to an actual barbecue
setting that may include a picnic table set with all the event's accoutrements located next to a
beautiful grill. As the customer turns the corner, he may be welcomed by a table topped with the
latest olive oil offering for tasting, along with bread for dipping, and perhaps a book on olive
oils. With the press of a button on a demonstration machine in the coffee section, a fresh cup of
great-tasting coffee is brewed up for the customer. Throughout the store, customers are

20
encouraged to touch, experience, and inquire about the products on display -- a formula that not
only educates the customers, but also entices them to purchase.

Observation: When a customer walks into a Williams-Sonoma store, she gets a feeling of
walking into a kitchen. It usually smells like food because there‟s a cooking demonstration or
samples being offered; customers‟ sense of taste are also tickled by these. Kitchen furnishings
are used for displays, fabrics cover many surfaces, and aprons are worn by the staff, engaging the
visual and tactile senses. It‟s a full-sensory experience.

CONCLUSION:

The essence of branding which has evolved from just product features and attributes now
includes experience and stimulating retail environments. Consumer shopping behavior is
emotive and greater numbers of consumers are being driven by experience and retail brands that
are able to deliver that experience through fashionable and fresh merchandise, innovative designs
of both product and retail, multi sensorial environments, and delightful customer service will be
able to build powerful and enduring retail brands.

21
REFERENCES:

 Book on Sensory Marketing by Marcus van Dijk , Niklas Broweus , Bertil

Hulten

 Dollars and Sense: The Impact of Multi-Sensory Marketing by Brumfield,

C. Russell

 5 D Sensory Branding by Kahn

 Retailers, CPG Partners Making Sense Out Of Sensory Marketing by

Amanda Ferrante

 Sensory Branding: Possibly the Most Effective Marketing Tool Yet? – Phil
Lempert‟s

22