Trendsurfing: Sensory branding (The Times)
By David Rowan
Phooey! That's the smell of the marketing industry discovering a fishy new way to sell us stuff. Hold your nose, but the latest flatulent theory claims that successful brands simply must have their own distinctive odours. If you can associate your product with an appropriate smell, so the thinking goes, then you will touch consumers at a deep emotional level, thus whiffily keeping them loyal. It's all part of a trend towards "sensory branding" wafting through corporate marketing departments, although it leaves Trendsurfing more than a little sniffy.
The notion first took hold in the Nineties, when companies such as Singapore Airlines commissioned one-off aromas to boost corporate identity. In the airline's case, a distinctive scent called Stefan Floridian Waters was suffused inside the aircraft, mixed into flight attendants' perfume, even dripped on to passengers' hot towels. The intention, which the company claims worked wonders, was to prompt familiar, warm memories when passengers boarded the plane. Soon, high-street retailers were experimenting with specially blended odours, from "air-dried linen" in Thomas Pink to "tropical coconut" in Lunn Poly. Heck, even Rolls-Royce started dabbing aromatic oils on its car seats to evoke the wood-panelled scent of a 1965 Silver Cloud.
But it has taken a new book by a Danish "brand futurist" to get the idea widely talked about and on to the bestseller lists. Brand Sense, by Martin Lindstrom, argues that marketers can no longer rely on a product's look or feel for its success, and firms from Mattel to McDonald's are listening transfixed. "The more senses you appeal to," he says, "the stronger the message will be perceived" - largely because the "subtle, pleasant and insidious" nature of multi-sensory branding entices customers without their being aware of it. So "revolutionary" are Lindstrom's findings that he is on a 51-city tour across 29 countries preaching his gospel of pungency - what he modestly calls "the largest branding conference in history".
You'll know if he's visited your neighbourhood by the lingering smell of that stuff bulls deposit in fields. As you might expect from a self-proclaimed "branding guru", Lindstrom does to English what McDonald's does to olfactory sensitivities. Businesses must pursue their "major sensory touch-point advantages" using "sensograms" that "leverage the brand signature". Fortunately, owing to his unique "structural equation modelling", the secrets of "sensory synergy" are now available to all. Gee, thanks, Mart.
To be fair to Lindstrom, a number of companies had already grasped his eternal truths. WH Smith sprayed the scent of pine trees in stores to boost Christmas trade, and Vauxhall's second-hand-car dealerships used an aroma of "new cars" to keep buyers sweet. (And we haven't even mentioned his tips for touch, taste, look and sound.) But recommending synthetic bouquets as a subtle means of tickling consumers' emotions is just the sort of thing that gives marketers a bad name.
Besides, we've discovered how Lindstrom wrote the book. On Google Answers last year, a guest purporting to be Lindstrom was offering tips ranging from $2 to anyone who could furnish his extensive research. All very enterprising, mate - but it looks like you overpaid.
(The Times, May 7 2005)
Phooey! That's the smell of the marketing industry discovering a fishy new way to sell us stuff. Hold your nose, but the latest flatulent theory claims that successful brands simply must have their own distinctive odours. If you can associate your product with an appropriate smell, so the thinking goes, then you will touch consumers at a deep emotional level, thus whiffily keeping them loyal. It's all part of a trend towards "sensory branding" wafting through corporate marketing departments, although it leaves Trendsurfing more than a little sniffy.
The notion first took hold in the Nineties, when companies such as Singapore Airlines commissioned one-off aromas to boost corporate identity. In the airline's case, a distinctive scent called Stefan Floridian Waters was suffused inside the aircraft, mixed into flight attendants' perfume, even dripped on to passengers' hot towels. The intention, which the company claims worked wonders, was to prompt familiar, warm memories when passengers boarded the plane. Soon, high-street retailers were experimenting with specially blended odours, from "air-dried linen" in Thomas Pink to "tropical coconut" in Lunn Poly. Heck, even Rolls-Royce started dabbing aromatic oils on its car seats to evoke the wood-panelled scent of a 1965 Silver Cloud.
But it has taken a new book by a Danish "brand futurist" to get the idea widely talked about and on to the bestseller lists. Brand Sense, by Martin Lindstrom, argues that marketers can no longer rely on a product's look or feel for its success, and firms from Mattel to McDonald's are listening transfixed. "The more senses you appeal to," he says, "the stronger the message will be perceived" - largely because the "subtle, pleasant and insidious" nature of multi-sensory branding entices customers without their being aware of it. So "revolutionary" are Lindstrom's findings that he is on a 51-city tour across 29 countries preaching his gospel of pungency - what he modestly calls "the largest branding conference in history".
You'll know if he's visited your neighbourhood by the lingering smell of that stuff bulls deposit in fields. As you might expect from a self-proclaimed "branding guru", Lindstrom does to English what McDonald's does to olfactory sensitivities. Businesses must pursue their "major sensory touch-point advantages" using "sensograms" that "leverage the brand signature". Fortunately, owing to his unique "structural equation modelling", the secrets of "sensory synergy" are now available to all. Gee, thanks, Mart.
To be fair to Lindstrom, a number of companies had already grasped his eternal truths. WH Smith sprayed the scent of pine trees in stores to boost Christmas trade, and Vauxhall's second-hand-car dealerships used an aroma of "new cars" to keep buyers sweet. (And we haven't even mentioned his tips for touch, taste, look and sound.) But recommending synthetic bouquets as a subtle means of tickling consumers' emotions is just the sort of thing that gives marketers a bad name.
Besides, we've discovered how Lindstrom wrote the book. On Google Answers last year, a guest purporting to be Lindstrom was offering tips ranging from $2 to anyone who could furnish his extensive research. All very enterprising, mate - but it looks like you overpaid.
(The Times, May 7 2005)
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