Sense Brands in the Interactive world

With due respects to Dr. Martin Lindstrom(below is the excerpt on the website promoting his book Brand Sense)
"Did you know that currently 83% of all commercial communication appeals only to one sense – our eyes. That leaves a paltry 17% to cater for the other four senses. This is extraordinary given that 75% of our day-to-day emotions are influenced by what we smell, and the fact that there’s a 65% chance of a mood change when exposed to a positive sound. This is a long way of saying that the importance of our senses has been completely overlooked in the brand-building business… until now. "

Here is my take on the five senses:

Sight:
Eyes are your doors to consciousness and let you explore the most provocative, most insanely pretty picture of the bland world around you and what better way for the inquisitive mind to search websites for something so visually appealing that would make you shed tears of joy/pity.......... you choice.

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This is a intelligently done guerrilla ad, which invokes an instant pity for the poor homeless.

And now a feast for your eyes..........Guess who's the boss?



Ads have surpassed the genre, where evocative ads which persuade the viewer with suggestive ads which engage the viewer.

Now, one of the most coolest sites on the net which can get you hooked.

Click on the picture to go to the site


Smell:
With newspapers(Wall Street Journal) using rub on ads which release perfume on being rubbed, to Walmart enhancing customers viewing experience by providing smell-o-vision DVD's, this is another way of establishing a psychological bond with the customer.
Although, I daresay that few companies completely miss the point( Kamasutra provided rub and sniff print ads of condoms in magazines and most of the rubbing and sniffing of banana, strawberry and cherry flavoured condoms was done by kids in junior high. Should I say, thanx for making perverts out of kids. Also, the ads failed the acid test because the potential customers chose Durex over Kamasutra when their time came.
Some brands which have got into the act of smelling their way across to the target consumers:

1. Walmart is ready with its prototype DVD which has an embedded chip which can release a particular smell( like the smell of freshly fired gun) at timed intervals, so giving an unsual experience of home viewing.
2. C-stores gas stations have artificial coffee cups mounted on the walls and emanating the whiff of coffee to lure credit card carrying customers into their mini marts.
3. Builders D.R Horton and Syntex use exhaust fans spreading the aroma of freshly baked apple pies.
Check out the article Gas pumps that smell like coffee.




Taste:
Ever felt that urge to grasp a 1 foot long sub and just dive into that special saucy and delicious, filling that fills up your senses and you hunger for more........................... Here's a tip for you guys: Don't order the barbecue sauce with tuna, that experience cost me my taste buds for 36 hours.
Whatever, orders to your preferences- Here's some delight for the famished souls.
Burger King website gives a categorical list of all the 64 items they serve.




Touch:
That special hug, the special expression of recognition when you win your first sweepstakes at a retailers, or even a simple gesture of calling you up to wish you Happy Birthday. That extra effort which makes you feel important, it touches your heart and you become a hard core loyalist of the Brand. We come in contact with numerous bits of information during our daily grind, only the most unique in their value proposition cherishing the user, are remembered the rest filtered away.

Says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications, "We remain committed to turning video games into an inclusive mass medium that everyone can enjoy. Touch Generations will help novices and newcomers identify the fun and uniquely engaging experiences that are available only on Nintendo DS". The first three new releases in the Touch Generations line-up will be Big Brain Academy, the second title in the brain-training series, Magnetica, a marble-based puzzler, and Sudoku Gridmaster, a Sodoku game with over 400 puzzles.

Visit this site for more details.

Hearing:

I've talked about this in my blog music branding.

To foray into this topic is of utmost interest for further exploration. As is the mystery with sounds - for laymen it is enough to know that a combination of vowels and consonants can play havoc with your psychological makeup and hence create an inductive pull which can propel the most straitjacketed critics of the advertisements to take another look. Dunno, what I'm talking about.BIG or the brand identity group specialises in customising songs to suit a common theme. They have certain vanilla tunes which can be used for any product and these tunes can be used as a background for your websites for casual as well as targetted surfers.