Marketers - What Does Your Brand Taste Like?

“18% of the Fortune Top 1,000 brands could add taste to their brands, yet almost none have so much as given taste a cursory glance.” (Brand Sense, Martin Lindstrom)

In today's cluttered marketing environment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cut through and get noticed. It is even more difficult to connect with people on an emotional level, which is what is now required to ensure consumers bond with your brand. The key to achieving this lies in engaging the senses. People do not interpret the world through just two senses, sight and sound, so why should your brand messages only communicate with them in this way?

Did you know we have about 10,000 taste buds, most of them on our tongue, all sending powerful messages to our brain effecting our perceptions? This week we gave Irish marketers just a taste (pun intended) of how direct mail allows you the opportunity to create truly extraordinary experiences for your customers. We sent them a miracle berry, which is a small African red fruit that has incredible taste altering properties - it changes the taste of sour and bitter foods to sweet. We asked them to allow the miracle mberry® tablet to melt and coat their tongue. Once dissolved, they could begin to enjoy foods as they never experienced them before for up to one hour. Some reported that lemons tasted like sugary sweet oranges. Or that Guinness tasted like a mocha.

Direct mail gives marketers the unique opportunity to deliver a truly sensory brand experience and engage with their customers on a strong emotional level. So, you marketers out there; what does your brand taste like?

Discover how to create your own amazing experiences at our Engage the Senses event, where you will learn how to develop unforgettable and cost-effective campaigns for your customers.

Engage the Senses
The Guinness Storehouse
March 25th, 7.30am – 9.30am
Tickets: €25 (or a discounted price of €75 for 5 tickets)
(Early bird tickets available at just €15 when purchased before 13th March)

Due to its immersive and interactive nature, tickets for this fascinating event are strictly limited. To book yours now, visit:

www.anpost.ie/engagethesenses
#EngageTheSenses

Marketers - See Beyond the Traditional...

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”

(Henry David Thoreau)

In today’s competitive media landscape, it can often be hard for businesses to make themselves seen. Consumers are bombarded with thousands of visual marketing messages on a daily basis. As a result of this information overload, most of these visual messages are blocked by our perceptual filters, leading to us being highly selective in deciding which messages will receive our attention. If visual marketing messages can win the consumer’s attention, they tend to be effective as 83% of information people retain is received visually (1).

The personal nature of direct mail allows marketers to put their message directly in front of the eyes of their customers. This week’s Engage the Senses challenge involved the use of a UV reactive ink being applied to a piece of direct mail. Recipients were asked to view the visual communication in direct sunlight for one minute. When they did, the message revealed, informing them that direct mail really does have the power to engage the senses.

See how your business could benefit from using this incredible medium at our Engage the Senses event, where you will learn how to develop visually arresting and cost-effective campaigns.

Engage the Senses

The Guinness Storehouse

March 25th

7.30am – 9.30am

Tickets: €25 (or a discounted price of €75 for 5 tickets)

(Early bird tickets available at just €15 when purchased before 13th March)

This incredible event really must be seen to be believed.

But hurry, as tickets are strictly limited. To book yours now visit:

www.anpost.ie/engagethesenses

#EngageTheSenses

(1) Sarah Ellison and Erin White (2000), “Sensory marketers says the way to reach shoppers is by the nose,” Financial Express, 27^th November. As cited in Martin Lindstrom’s Brand Sense (2005, 2010).

Marketers - The Power of Direct Mail is at Your Fingertips...

Touch; “To be in contact with something or someone”.

In today’s crowded media landscape it can be difficult for marketers to truly connect with their target audience. Touch is the tool of connection. “The skin is the largest organ of the body. We’re instantly alert to cold, heat, pain, or pressure. Experts estimate that there are fifty receptors per 100 square millimetres, each containing micro receptors in our brains dedicated to the senses.”1 We humans have more tactile receptors in our little fingers than we do on our entire back. When we encounter a pleasant touch the brain releases the feel good hormone oxytocin (otherwise known as the 'bonding hormone'). 

Only direct mail can literally put your message into the hands of prospective new customers, making them really feel your brand. This is what we highlighted with our first engage the sense challenge mailing this week. We asked respondents to press their hand against the mail and, by means of thermal ink, their body heat revealed a message in a previously blank space. This not only connected with the audience by engaging their sense of touch, but it gave the message a real stand out quality.

Tune in next week to see what’s possible with direct mail...

#EngageTheSenses

The Engage the Senses Event

If you would like to discover how to utilise the power of this unique medium, attend the Engage the Senses event, where you will learn how to develop cost-effective campaigns that create real connections with your customers.

Engage the Senses

The Guinness Storehouse

March 25th

7.30am – 9.30am

Tickets: €25 (or a discounted price of €75 for 5 tickets)

(Early bird tickets available at just €15 when purchased before 13th March)

Due to its immersive and interactive nature, tickets for this fascinating event are strictly limited. To book yours now, visit: www.anpost.ie/engagethesenses

1.       Lindstrom, M. (2005, 2010), Brand Sense – Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy, pp 33.

Why Marketers Should Engage the Senses

Why is it that 97% of all brand communications engage only two human senses (1), when us humans interpret the world through five senses? Think about it, all of the ads you see and hear on TV, radio, on outdoor billboards, or on your computer screen all engage two senses; sight and sound. And this is not a mere academic observation, it could be a pretty significant one for brand marketers.

Information Overload

The average consumer is exposed to 5,000 brand communications every day (2), all competing for your attention. As consumers, we cannot possibly interpret that daily information overload and the fact is we don’t try. We are extremely selective regarding which communications will receive our attention. How can brands possibly cut through this clutter and be heard above this incredible noise?

The Power of Sensory Marketing

The problem with engaging sight and sound only is the incorrect assumption that consumers make purchase decisions rationally. Consumers don't make decisions rationally (not most of the time anyway). Many decisions are made in the sub-conscious mind. Many decisions are made based on feelings and emotions connect with feelings. When brands engage all the humans senses they evoke feelings and connect with their audience on an emotional level. This is the language brands need to speak if they are to be heard above the noise. This is the experience brands need to deliver if they are to cut through the clutter.

It has been proven; when brands appeal to three or more senses, and therefore different parts of the brain,

brand impact and engagement increases by more than 70% (3). Some brands already know this. Did you know the “new car smell” is completely artificial and sprayed into new cars from an aerosol can as the last process at the manufacturing plant? That Singapore Airlines created their own perfume (called Stefan Floridian Waters) which is infused into the fuselage of their planes? Or that the ‘crunch’ sound of Kelloggs breakfast cereals was created in a sound lab?

Select Channels that Engage the Senses

If marketers want to create memorable and change-enabling campaigns, they must create sensory experiences that captivate the minds of their audience. They must engage their senses. In doing so, and whenever possible, they must choose channels that are capable of achieving this.

In my current role, as Market Engagement Manager at An Post (the Irish mail delivery service), my challenge is to prove to marketers the true power of direct mail as a marketing channel. Very few channels have the power to engage all of the human senses and therefore create a truly sensorial, and therefore memorable, disruptive and compelling, message. Direct mail has that power.

Starting from next week, and for five consecutive weeks, marketers in Ireland will receive a separate unique direct mail communication, each engaging a different sense. By the end of the series, they will have visited the moon, revealed messages through touch alone, experienced tastes like never before, and much more. I will report on these weekly sensory mailings right here, although I will be limited in the sensory experience I can deliver through this particular channel. The campaign will also encompass a truly engaging event discussing the power of sensory marketing and direct mail's ability to deliver remarkable campaigns that make real emotional connections. For more on this event, check out www.anpost.ie/engagethesenses

So, stay tuned to learn the true power of direct mail in delivering a multi-sensory brand experience and perhaps your next campaign could be the most impactful yet...

#engagethesenses

Sources - 

(1) Lindstrom, M (2005), "Broad Sensory Branding", Journal of Product and Brand Management.

(2) Brand-Driven Conference, Amsterdam (2009).

(3) Lindstrom, M. (2005, 2010), "Brand Sense - Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff we Buy".

Gavin Fox MSc

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