Building brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound
Human beings have been blessed with five sensory organs of touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound. We are at our most receptive self when we are using all five senses. The scent of a perfume, the tune of a song, the taste of our mother’s cooked food, the touch of a loved one, or the mere sight of an old photograph with our friends can bring a plethora of emotions in an instant. These emotions can motivate us enough to do some action — like calling someone we haven’t spoken to for over a decade or in some extreme cases, sample a new taste like Pufferfish (Japan) even at the risk of our own lives.
There are only three countries with a long-standing history of integrating five senses within their culture and traditions — India, Japan, and Thailand.
We’re surrounded by the products designed specifically to satisfy our senses.
Let’s look at a few of them
Coca-Cola
Primary colors have clearly dominated in the world of brands as they serve as the first point of communication. Coke has a very unambiguous sense of color. Quite simply, where there is Coke, there is red and white.
However, Coke lost the battle for Red in the European market to powerful local players. 30% of people in the United Kingdom associate red color with Vodafone vs 22% for Coke.
However, Coke didn’t rely just on colors.
Do you remember the impact of a chilled glass bottle with water droplets on your motivation to take a sip? Coke used texture, the sense of touch, brilliantly in its product delivery. Even though the bottle has been slowly downgraded, a survey conducted by TagTaste shows that 62% of India still prefers their Coke in a glass bottle.
Lastly, we can all hear the sound of a pop that comes out when we open the lid of its glass bottle even while reading this. That’s the sense of sound at play.
Coke’s extreme focus to satisfy our senses has made it a truly remarkable brand that stood the test of time for over a century.
Have a break, have a KitKat.
Here’s another product with a pinch of sensory focus in every aspect of its design.
KitKat is instantly recognized by the shape of its connected pieces — long, skinny ingots with ridge-like feet of chocolate surrounding its base.
The base itself is made up of different flavors. Each flavor comes from a unique ingredient & geography. The wrappers on the chocolate have images to represent these ingredients & geographies thereby connecting the appearance with its taste.
The wafers embedded in KitKat provide the crispy sound and the smooth texture of the chocolate on its surface appeals to our sense of touch.
As we can see, there is a lot happening in that small box of chocolate. The product itself is designed to appeal to our sense of touch, taste, and sound while the cover appeals to our sense of sight by conveying what to expect even before having it.
Some other examples
- Kellogg’s has spent years exploring the linkage between crunch and taste. The day Kellogg’s introduced their one-of-a-kind crunch to the market, their sales began to go through the roof as they’d expanded the perception of their brand to incorporate the sense of touch and sound.
- Starbucks: As per research, Starbucks’ top two sensory associations are the sound of machines grinding coffee beans and the aroma of sour milk. What do you think — is it intentional or unintentional?
- Burger King: A few of the Burger King’s Limited Time Offers have burgers with potato chips in their build to get that extra crispy sound & texture. Indian meals have papad to perform the same function.
- McDonald’s: Once senior executives of McDonald’s were asked to visit their restaurants blindfolded. Among other things, it taught them that apart from those golden arches, the company actually owned smells, sounds, and touch points.
What do we make of all this?
Successful brands are always trying to fiddle with sensory appeal in order to attract and retain customers. Why shouldn’t they?
We sniff our fruits to check if they are ripe for consumption. We squeeze our bread to check for freshness. We salivate on the aroma of freshly cooked food. We are attracted to the crispy-crunchy-crackly sounds. We make our decision to harvest our crops based on their color. We are what we sense!
Marketing can get eyeballs but the product impacts all five of our senses. Our products are our best marketing tools. Once they reach a consumer, it’s their sensory appeal alone that brings the consumer back again and again.
This is where we can help.
Over the last couple of years, we have conducted hundreds of tasting sessions spanning thousands of consumers and experts. We’ve helped many companies with an in-depth sensorial analysis of their products to identify the areas of improvement along with some actionable insights. We can help in the entire product management lifecycle that includes market survey, product ideas, product development, competitor benchmarking, and launch of a product. If you are looking for some help with your food and beverage products, look no further. Reach out to us at contact@tagtaste.com.
Cheers
Arun
References: Homodeus by Dr. Yuval Harari, A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, Brand Sense by Martin Lindstrom, Various issues of NYT and WSJ, Scientific American, Chef Manjit Gill (notes of wisdom)
