sense
appeal

By Chris Quirk
New ways marketers are using taste, sound, and vision to evoke emotion and build consumer bonds
Consider the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish® cracker—the shape, the saltiness, the color, the scent. You can probably recall the precise sensation of eating one right now. That’s no accident. “Anybody can take a laminated dough and make a cracker, but the toasted notes, the texture, and the eyes and smiles—which aren’t on all the crackers—all of those things are carefully crafted,” said Frank Rapacki, MBA ’03. “And people don’t just get all those sensory attributes, people create bonds with those products.”

As the director of innovation and sensory design at Campbell Soup Company, Rapacki spends a great deal of time thinking about and calibrating every aspect of the way customers experience Campbell’s offerings, which, in addition to soups and the popular Goldfish snack, include other household products like Milano® cookies and Prego® pasta sauces. “Sensory marketing is understanding all the physical qualities of a product,” Rapacki said. “How do you take into account the entire sensory experience, as well as all of the emotional experiences that those products can communicate to a consumer, and do it in a salient way that makes people connect with a brand?”

sense
appeal

By Chris Quirk
New ways marketers are using taste, sound, and vision to evoke emotion and build consumer bonds
Consider the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish® cracker—the shape, the saltiness, the color, the scent. You can probably recall the precise sensation of eating one right now. That’s no accident. “Anybody can take a laminated dough and make a cracker, but the toasted notes, the texture, and the eyes and smiles—which aren’t on all the crackers—all of those things are carefully crafted,” said Frank Rapacki, MBA ’03. “And people don’t just get all those sensory attributes, people create bonds with those products.”

As the director of innovation and sensory design at Campbell Soup Company, Rapacki spends a great deal of time thinking about and calibrating every aspect of the way customers experience Campbell’s offerings, which, in addition to soups and the popular Goldfish snack, include other household products like Milano® cookies and Prego® pasta sauces. “Sensory marketing is understanding all the physical qualities of a product,” Rapacki said. “How do you take into account the entire sensory experience, as well as all of the emotional experiences that those products can communicate to a consumer, and do it in a salient way that makes people connect with a brand?”

Bottle Opening
While the “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” of Rice Krispies is a golden oldie of sensory marketing, appealing to the senses is a venerable marketing technique that dates back at least as far as when tavern keepers opened windows to lure passers-by with the mouthwatering scent of a roast in the oven or a pot of simmering stew. But as Rapacki attests, contemporary sensory marketing aims to accomplish more than just tempting consumers to spend. It is a tool that can elicit emotion, address multifaceted consumer needs, and increase a brand’s ability to reach—and build connections with—broader, more diverse audiences.

The concept of connection is a driving force for Rapacki, who was born into a family of Polish food manufacturers on Long Island, and trained under a master baker to help his family business stock better babkas. “I love creating great food experiences for people, and connecting people through food,” he said. “As I interact with food, I think about every second and every sub-second, and I think about how the attributes of the product play into that brand moment.”

Rapacki’s recent products for the global food producer are certainly designed to enliven the senses. Under his guidance, Campbell’s is reaching out to a broader customer base with bolder, limited-edition Goldfish® flavors like Frank’s RedHot® and Jalepeño Popper. “The new seasonings are pushing the envelope,” Rapacki said. “Goldfish are becoming more a brand for the entire family, and something to enjoy together at full family occasions.”

Solutions that Target Consumer Needs

Marketing in its simplest form could be described as persuasion, but for Dawn Lerman, PhD, a professor of marketing at the Gabelli School and the executive director of Fordham’s Center for Positive Marketing, a good marketer is a problem solver. “As humans, we have a wide range of physiological and psychological needs. Marketers identify gaps in need fulfillment and create solutions to fill those gaps,” she said.

To that end, sensory marketing offers marketers fast-track access to the immediacy of sense perceptions, a wide range of emotions, and memories of past experiences. Research in the past decade has proven that sensory responses to even mild stimuli can be psychologically powerful. A small but widely cited 2011 study by Eskine, Kacinik, and Prinz found that participants who drank a bitter liquid made more severe judgments of moral transgressions than those who drank a sweet or neutral sample.

A 2020 paper by researchers at the University of Geneva reported similar findings, but in reverse: after reading about wrongdoing, participants found a nasty smell more repellent than the control group.

The appeal to the senses gives marketers a bigger toolbox with which to present their products, and some companies are innovating creatively. One sensory marketing solution created by Mastercard surprises with its simplicity. When the raised numbers were removed from plastic credit cards, it made it more difficult for the sight impaired to distinguish among their cards. To address that issue, Mastercard redesigned its cards with different shaped notches cut out of the sides. The program, called “Touch Card,” makes the credit cards easily identifiable for the sight impaired, who no longer have to guess or ask for help in finding the credit card they want to use at the checkout counter.

“Multisensory marketing is so important for us because it gives us meaningful and actionable ways to engage,” said Nicola Grant, senior vice president of consumer marketing for North America, Mastercard. Grant presented the Touch Card at the “Meaningful Customer Interactions: How to Appeal to the Feel” conference, which was held in February, and co-sponsored by the Center for Positive Marketing and the ANA Educational Foundation (AEF).

Grant also shared a new sound initiative, Mastercard’s Sonic DNA, which features a series of simple musical phrases that are combined for different purposes—for example, a rich orchestration for a television advertisement or a simple chime signaling transaction acceptance at a point of sale—while clearly transmitting the Mastercard brand. The point-of-sale chime is sonically crafted to cut through the cacophony sometimes found in public settings or large shops, to give purchasers confidence that their transaction was successful.

The Power of Sound and Vision

Conjuring fond memories with tastes, scents, and colors is another way organizations use sensory marketing to engage with consumers. Hershey’s new line of candy bars in ice cream flavors like “Strawberries ’n’ Crème,” “Mint Chocolate Chip,” and “Birthday Cake” were the subject of another presentation at the conference. The traditional Hershey’s chocolate bar was transformed to not only deliver the taste, aroma, cooling sensation, and color of ice cream, but to also include the shape and crunch of a waffle cone. Hershey’s ambition is to create a playful intersection between nostalgia and sensorial experience by tapping into pleasant memories of past ice cream outings with loved ones via the scent and flavor of the bars.

Tapping into the senses to capture consumers’ attention is the focus of current research by faculty at the Gabelli School. Assistant Professor of Marketing Hoori Rafieian, PhD, is studying autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), a new and novel trend in advertising.

ASMR is a state of relaxation and calmness induced by sounds and images that are crisp and free of distraction. Typically, an ASMR video will feature simple actions and sounds—like someone brushing their hair or crinkling a wrapper—recorded at close range with a sensitive microphone. In 2019, ASMR hit the advertising big time when Anheuser Busch ran an ad for Michelob Ultra during Super Bowl LIII featuring heightened audio of Zoe Kravitz whispering into a microphone, tapping a beer bottle with her fingernails, and slowly pouring the brew into a narrow pilsner glass. At the time, the price tag for a 30-second spot on CBS averaged more than $5 million, and Business Insider reported that when the spot was posted to YouTube, it was viewed almost 13 million times in less than a week.

“As a tool, ASMR is hyper-focused on the visual and auditory aspects of consumption,” Rafieian said. “The background noises are canceled completely, so when you are watching and listening to a ASMR video, you feel very connected to what you are watching.” Some viewers report a tingling feeling in the head and neck in response to these ASMR “triggers.” Rafieian’s research has so far shown that this kind of immersive experience can promote a better attitude toward a product, and that consumers will anticipate a better experience with a product after viewing an ASMR video.

“Sensory marketing is not new, but it does play a new and expanded role as people seek brands to help them express and live their values.”

The Values Proposition

While the benefits of sensory advertising for marketers are being investigated, there may also be downstream benefits to consumers. Rafieian is looking into the connection between the mindfulness that ASMR can induce and the way individuals consume. For example, ASMR has similarities to things like the slow food movement, which encourages the experiential, environmental, and communal aspects of preparing and eating food. “This kind of consumption is especially appreciated by Gen Z consumers,” Rafieian stated. Similarly, fashion companies are now positioning themselves as “slow fashion,” defined by Italian fashion executive Carlo Capasa as the difference between creating a desire and fulfilling a need. “These fashion brands are getting a lot of traction with Gen Z, because they care about the responsibility not just of companies, but also customers,” Rafieian said.

Lerman concurs that today, the broader public generally is more circumspect in the market. “People are increasingly questioning whether a brand speaks to their values,” she said. Beyond that, humans need experiences, and sensory approaches to marketing can help address this need. “Sensory marketing is not new, but it does play a new and expanded role as people seek brands to help them express and live their values. More generally, sensory experiences engage us emotionally. They help us experience life. At the Center for Positive Marketing, we track the importance that Americans attach to a variety of fundamental needs and the degree to which brands help satisfy those needs. The importance of fulfilling experiential needs dropped off during the pandemic, but they are regaining importance. To the degree that brands can engage our senses and help us experience life more fully again… that’s positive marketing.”

Chris Quirk is a freelance writer based in New York.
Goldfish Crackers
The appeal to the senses gives marketers a bigger toolbox with which to present their products, and some companies are innovating creatively. One sensory marketing solution created by Mastercard surprises with its simplicity. When the raised numbers were removed from plastic credit cards, it made it more difficult for the sight impaired to distinguish among their cards. To address that issue, Mastercard redesigned its cards with different shaped notches cut out of the sides. The program, called “Touch Card,” makes the credit cards easily identifiable for the sight impaired, who no longer have to guess or ask for help in finding the credit card they want to use at the checkout counter.

“Multisensory marketing is so important for us because it gives us meaningful and actionable ways to engage,” said Nicola Grant, senior vice president of consumer marketing for North America, Mastercard. Grant presented the Touch Card at the “Meaningful Customer Interactions: How to Appeal to the Feel” conference, which was held in February, and co-sponsored by the Center for Positive Marketing and the ANA Educational Foundation (AEF).

Grant also shared a new sound initiative, Mastercard’s Sonic DNA, which features a series of simple musical phrases that are combined for different purposes—for example, a rich orchestration for a television advertisement or a simple chime signaling transaction acceptance at a point of sale—while clearly transmitting the Mastercard brand. The point-of-sale chime is sonically crafted to cut through the cacophony sometimes found in public settings or large shops, to give purchasers confidence that their transaction was successful.

The Power of Sound and Vision

Conjuring fond memories with tastes, scents, and colors is another way organizations use sensory marketing to engage with consumers. Hershey’s new line of candy bars in ice cream flavors like “Strawberries ’n’ Crème,” “Mint Chocolate Chip,” and “Birthday Cake” were the subject of another presentation at the conference. The traditional Hershey’s chocolate bar was transformed to not only deliver the taste, aroma, cooling sensation, and color of ice cream, but to also include the shape and crunch of a waffle cone. Hershey’s ambition is to create a playful intersection between nostalgia and sensorial experience by tapping into pleasant memories of past ice cream outings with loved ones via the scent and flavor of the bars.

Tapping into the senses to capture consumers’ attention is the focus of current research by faculty at the Gabelli School. Assistant Professor of Marketing Hoori Rafieian, PhD, is studying autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), a new and novel trend in advertising.

ASMR is a state of relaxation and calmness induced by sounds and images that are crisp and free of distraction. Typically, an ASMR video will feature simple actions and sounds—like someone brushing their hair or crinkling a wrapper—recorded at close range with a sensitive microphone. In 2019, ASMR hit the advertising big time when Anheuser Busch ran an ad for Michelob Ultra during Super Bowl LIII featuring heightened audio of Zoe Kravitz whispering into a microphone, tapping a beer bottle with her fingernails, and slowly pouring the brew into a narrow pilsner glass. At the time, the price tag for a 30-second spot on CBS averaged more than $5 million, and Business Insider reported that when the spot was posted to YouTube, it was viewed almost 13 million times in less than a week.

“As a tool, ASMR is hyper-focused on the visual and auditory aspects of consumption,” Rafieian said. “The background noises are canceled completely, so when you are watching and listening to a ASMR video, you feel very connected to what you are watching.” Some viewers report a tingling feeling in the head and neck in response to these ASMR “triggers.” Rafieian’s research has so far shown that this kind of immersive experience can promote a better attitude toward a product, and that consumers will anticipate a better experience with a product after viewing an ASMR video.

“Sensory marketing is not new, but it does play a new and expanded role as people seek brands to help them express and live their values.”

The Values Proposition

While the benefits of sensory advertising for marketers are being investigated, there may also be downstream benefits to consumers. Rafieian is looking into the connection between the mindfulness that ASMR can induce and the way individuals consume. For example, ASMR has similarities to things like the slow food movement, which encourages the experiential, environmental, and communal aspects of preparing and eating food. “This kind of consumption is especially appreciated by Gen Z consumers,” Rafieian stated. Similarly, fashion companies are now positioning themselves as “slow fashion,” defined by Italian fashion executive Carlo Capasa as the difference between creating a desire and fulfilling a need. “These fashion brands are getting a lot of traction with Gen Z, because they care about the responsibility not just of companies, but also customers,” Rafieian said.

Lerman concurs that today, the broader public generally is more circumspect in the market. “People are increasingly questioning whether a brand speaks to their values,” she said. Beyond that, humans need experiences, and sensory approaches to marketing can help address this need. “Sensory marketing is not new, but it does play a new and expanded role as people seek brands to help them express and live their values. More generally, sensory experiences engage us emotionally. They help us experience life. At the Center for Positive Marketing, we track the importance that Americans attach to a variety of fundamental needs and the degree to which brands help satisfy those needs. The importance of fulfilling experiential needs dropped off during the pandemic, but they are regaining importance. To the degree that brands can engage our senses and help us experience life more fully again… that’s positive marketing.”

Chris Quirk is a freelance writer based in New York.
Microphone and Chocolate
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