Sensory Marketing

The paper ‘An integrative review of sensory marketing: Engaging the senses to affect perception, judgement and behavior’ by Krishna (2012) provides an overview of existing research on the topic of sensory marketing and proposes a conceptual framework on the phenomenon. This essay will discuss key findings of the paper and will critically reflect on the framework. Finally, it will also offer suggestions for future research in regard to the topic of sensory marketing.

Human beings have five different basic senses - haptics, smell, audition, taste and vision. Building up on this, sensory marketing was defined by Krishna (2012, p.333) as “marketing that engages the consumers’ senses and affects their perception, judgment and behavior”. Krishna (2012) furthermore argues that due to a huge amount of marketing material consumers are exposed to on daily basis, people might get more easily engaged by triggers that appeal on their basic senses rather than by messages officially communicated by companies. In order for marketers to make use of the triggers, they need to grasp the concepts of sensation and perception and suitably apply them in the consumer behaviour field (Krishna, 2012). Sensation, on the one hand, refers to the instant reaction of a person’s sensory receptors to stimuli such as colour, light and smell. Perception, on the other hand, is the procedure of selecting, organising and interpreting these stimuli (Krishna, 2012; Salomon et al., 2016). In his model, illustrated by Figure 1, Krishna (2012) shows how can sensation and perception be applied within the field of sensory marketing in areas such as emotion, cognition, preference, choice, learning or evaluation. While describing the individual parts of the framework, Krishna (2012) offers suitable real-life examples both from his own experience and from other researchers. For instance, when explaining the bodily state of the grounded cognition phenomena, the example of judgement of the steepness of hills and distances based on whether or not subjects wore heavy backpacks, makes the concept relatable and easy to grasp.

Figure 1: A conceptual framework of sensory marketing

Source: adapted according to Krishna, 2012, 335p.

Nevertheless, while the framework offers a nice overview of sensory marketing with fitting examples, some parts are, unfortunately, not explained in necessary detail. This applies especially to the concepts of emotion and grounded emotion. While these evidently play important roles within the conceptual framework of sensory marketing, Krishna (2012) mentions them only very briefly and on a limited number of examples without any theoretical explanations. Moreover, although Krishna (2012) states that perception affects attitude and behaviour, his conceptual framework illustrates the relationship to be of a mutual nature. This is due to that fact that the arrow portrayed in the framework points in both directions. However, he neither explains when and how this happens, nor does he offer any examples to demonstrate it. Building up on this, the framework describes the perceptual process from individual senses to perception rather briefly and simply. A more comprehensive description of this process was described by Salomon et al. (2016), illustrated by Figure 2, who differentiated eight different steps, namely stimuli, sensory receptors, sensation, attention, interpretation, meaning, response and perception.

Figure 2: An overview of the perceptual process

Source: adapted according to Salomon et al., 2016, 126p.

In his research paper, Krishna (2012) accurately points to a number of research gaps in the field of sensory marketing. These concern, for example, sensory scales, differences among individuals’ sensory reality or the relationship between perception and cognition. Nevertheless, there are more opportunities and potential directions for further research, most of which are related to technological advancements that could have been witnessed in the last couple of years. Firstly, owing to virtual and augmented reality technologies, marketers are now able to appeal on consumers’ vision in a much greater detailed compared to regular 2D photos and videos. Hence, it would be interesting to see, for instance, if the employment of virtual reality headsets in travel agencies would increase the number of bookings for a particular destination. Secondly, due to a tremendous boom and growth in regard to internet sales (Statista, 2019), there is a need for marketers to see how they can appeal to consumers with high need-for-touch when selling their products online. While providing written description of the way the products feel was proven to be helpful to a certain extent (Peck & Childers, 2003), future research could involve printing imitations of the products using a 3D printer and giving it to consumers. This would allow to assess into what extent could 3D-printed imitations, of a different material and weight compared to the original, serve as satisfactory substitutes, resulting in a positive buying behaviour within the high need-for-touch customer segment. And thirdly, although Krishna (2012) discusses the need for research on the disparities among individuals’ sensory reality, it would also be worthy to shed a light on different product categories and find out for what senses are most important for which products. The results would allow marketers to prioritise among the senses when creating and delivering their products or service offers.

To sum up, Krishna (2012) provides a thorough review of the very complex sensory marketing field. He proposes a conceptual framework that can be employed to understand the phenomenon, allowing marketers to make better use of sensory marketing while developing and implementing their marketing strategies with the aim of elevating their brands. Overall, there are tremendous opportunities within this very complex phenomenon, including, but not limited to new technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality or 3D printing. Consequently, keeping up-to-date with the newest research renders as essential for marketers aiming to stay on top of the game while promoting their products and services.

References:

Krishna, A. (2012). An Integrative Review of Sensory Marketing: Engaging the Senses to affect Perception, Judgment and Behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(3), pp. 332-351.

Peck, J., & Childers, T. L. (2003). To have and to hold: The influence of haptic information on product judgments. Journal of Marketing, 67, 35–48.

Solomon, M. R., Bamossy, G. J., Askegaard, S., and Hogg, M. K. (2016). Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective, 6th edn. London: Pearson Education Limited.

Statista. (2019). Worldwide retail e-commerce sales 2014-2021. Retrieved April 2, 2019, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/379046/worldwide-retail-e-commerce-sales/