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)

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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