Whether marketing is a science or a practice, what is certain is that marketing methods, as well as its theories, are always renewed. It is not limited to the emergence of modern concepts from time to time such as Neuromarketing or Sensory Marketing…etc, but there are new methods that are adopted in Marketing practices steadily.
And if marketing, according to Philip Kotler, is to establish a long-term profitable relationship with customers, this relationship will only be through influencing them, and playing on their sensitive strings.
From here come all the new and strange marketing attempts and practices, some of which may reach the level of the unexpected, as we may see shortly.
All the methods that we will mention in this article will fall under the so-called “Neuromarketing Marketing”, which is an advertising tactic that aims to attract one or more of the five human senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch; To create an emotional attachment to a particular product or brand.
A successful sensory branding strategy exploits certain beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and memories; To create the brand image in the mind of the customer. For example, if the smell of pumpkin spice in October makes you think of Starbucks, it’s no accident.
Read also: Emotional marketing from a scientific perspective.. How do marketing campaigns target your feelings in their favor?
Neuromarketing…”aromatherapy”
Scent Marketing is a commonly used method in neuromarketing, and there are plenty of examples of this, including:
- Healthcare facilities that use a calming scent to calm a patient’s nerves.
- Gyms and fitness facilities often have bright, energizing scents that inspire enthusiasm and make members feel more ready to work out.
- Seniors’ societies regularly include a soothing fragrance; To help new residents and their families feel more relaxed during the stressful process of choosing and moving to a new home.
There are many benefits to scent marketing and you can expect a strong return on investment. Some studies have revealed that the use of scents in marketing has increased customer satisfaction by 20%, and this method has led to a daily increase in retail sales of 11%. There was also an 8% improvement in food quality satisfaction scores, without making any changes to the food served, except for the use of scent.
Touch marketing is a type of neuromarketing
Touch is one of the simplest ways to interact and connect with the environment around us and is also a form of neuromarketing. When consumers touch and feel products, it helps them rate the product and relate it to quality.
Brand sentiment can extend beyond just a product; It may include packaging or a branded trial.
“There is a connection between touch and the emotional centers of the brain, which helps us make decisions and remember details about tactile experiences that we find enjoyable and those that are not,” wrote Claire Hevron of The Inspired Treehouse.
Given the importance of touch in neuromarketing and its critical impact on customers, many brands such as Best Buy and the Apple Store have adopted this method.
“Recent studies have found that seemingly insignificant touches lead to bigger tips for waitresses, and that people shop and buy more if someone touches them in the store,” Rick Chilott wrote in his book The Power of Touch.
Research shows that actual personal touch, such as a handshake or a light pat on the shoulder, leads people to feel safer and spend more money. Some studies have also shown that waitresses who touch diners get more tips.
color psychology
Psychologists’ research says that 62% to 90% of impulsive decisions about specific products are based on color alone; For this reason, marketers frequently use color purposefully in designs.
This is a matter of color psychology, which is the study of shapes as a way of understanding, predicting, and influencing human behaviour.
In fact, research shows that anticipating your customers’ reaction to color and its relationship to your brand is more important than the actual color itself, and 93% of consumers consider visual appearance as the main deciding factor in their purchasing decision.
Below we list the uses of some of the leading brands for one or more of the previous methods (touching, smelling, looking), as follows:
Facebook’s use of blue makes sense; What could be more appropriate for a brand that has connected the whole world and really made it a small village of this color?
The use of color fits well with the very honest and solid image of social networking projects. However, like Yahoo, it didn’t choose the blue brand as it seems.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, explained that blue is the color he can see best, stressing that it is more suitable than red and green.
Target
That’s a well-known brand in bright red. Their logo started out as a red bull’s-eye with the brand’s name in the middle, but when people came to associate the symbol with the store, they no longer needed to use text.
What’s interesting about Target’s marketing is that they keep the ‘red’ rhythm, staying true to their upbeat and passionate personality throughout.
Amazon
Amazon is a brand that uses yellow in its logo; To deliver a positive and welcoming message.
The Amazon logo uses a yellow arrow to go from the letter a to z, hinting at their “we sell everything” character. The smile shape drawn by the yellow arrow also illustrates the happy image that this company is seeking.
Burger King
In Japan, Burger King used the aroma of grilled meat; To increase consumers’ appetite and promote delicious burgers. Ventilation ducts in the brand’s restaurants infuse this alluring scent throughout the space; To stimulate a strong appetite in those who are ready to eat.
Starbucks
The crisp aroma of freshly brewed coffee and rich, dark coffee beans permeates every Starbucks location, and this is not just a by-product of what is sold in this upscale coffee shop. Starbucks adds the aroma of coffee to the HVAC system for more air coverage while reminding you to buy coffee.
Cinnabon
Cinnabon makes sure its stores are designed so that the ovens are near the front of the site rather than the back of the kitchen.
This mode allows the scent of fresh cinnamon to fill the immediate vicinity of the store; What motivates consumers to come for dessert.
Visa
Visa has begun integrating brands’ sensory experience at the end of their users’ transactions; Because they discovered that sound plays a role in how consumers make purchases.
Once a Visa cardholder uses their card and their transaction is officially completed, consumers hear a unique voice, one that the company has worked long and hard to perfect. When customers hear this sound, they know that their purchase has been completed successfully and safely.
Visa Checkout’s voice reinforces the sense of trust and security that consumers associate with the brand itself.
Apple
Apple taps into many senses simultaneously with its brand. Its stores, for example, are all white, simple and clean, and this gives customers the feeling that they are with a modern, elegant, high-quality tech company, and its product cases offer the same feel and look.
In addition to sight and touch, Apple targets its customers with sound; For example, when one of the hundreds of millions of iPhone users go to lock their iPhone, the devices all make a similar and recognizable sound, which is unforgettable. This sound is universal across all iPhones, providing a sense of consistency and familiarity.
Mastercard
Mastercard uses audio; to associate consumers with its brand; By using their credit card “Voice ID” to be exact.
Where consumers hear the sound when the process is completed, the sound is supposed to symbolize the intersection of the red and yellow circles in the Mastercard logo.
This voice is a form of neuromarketing that consumers hear while shopping with their Mastercards online and in stores, and while using voice search.
This provides a sense of security and harmony; Consumers know their transactions have been successful when this familiar voice is heard. Moreover, this audio still provides a fantastic visual experience for customers as well.
Other brands have used Neuromarketing
Brands like Soup Campbell, Gerber and Frito-Lay have used neuromarketing to redesign their packaging; Consumers were shown model-by-model product packaging choices, their response recorded, and then analyzed information that ultimately led to changes in business items.
He stated that this information was then used in conjunction with an in-depth interview; To analyze specific points that eventually led to changes in elements such as color, size of text and images, noting that Frito-Lay, for example, discovered that shiny bags containing images of chips caused discomfort to the testers, and volunteers looked away from them after a short period of presentation, which He invited the company to design new matte bags.
Hyundai and Paypal
Hyundai, too, used neuromarketing when it gave 30 participants EEG caps (technical caps that monitor brain signals) and asked them to scan a prototype car for an hour, after which it analyzed the experiment and redesigned parts of the car according to those analyses.
As PayPal found that its advertising campaigns focused on speed and convenience elicited a much higher response than those related to safety and security, it developed entirely new advertising campaigns based on the previous findings.
STA Travel and eye tracking
Companies like STA Travel use eye tracking to see if branded computer-generated content is getting people’s attention on websites or in virtual environments like Second Life.
Advertisers use staring tracks to determine whether viewers are looking at products placed in TV shows, and if so, for exactly how many seconds.
The technology is so precise that it can help an advertiser decide how to create images and videos; For example, what is the best place to put that Coca-Cola bottle on the judges table while filming American Idol?
You can also use these methods in your business. If you have a restaurant, warm colors such as red and yellow stimulate the appetite, notice this in major food brands, and the use of soothing perfume inhalers in customer review centers, helps the customer to relax and end the waiting period. Small details can have a big impact on your business revenue, so don’t neglect them.
