How Sensory Marketing Builds a Brand People Remember
Let's be brutally honest about sensory marketing.
Most people think it's about scented candles. They believe they're ticking the sensory box if they light a vanilla-scented wick in their shop or play generic “chill” music.
That's not marketing. That's tidying up.
It's a superficial, lazy, and frankly insulting interpretation of a powerful branding tool. It's the business equivalent of wearing a clean shirt but forgetting to shower.
If you think sensory marketing is just about making your space “nice,” you're not just missing the point; you're actively wasting an opportunity to build a brand that people remember.
- Sensory marketing is about creating specific, memorable brand experiences, not just superficial enhancements like pleasant scents.
- Using sensory cues effectively forms subconscious brand associations that bypass rational thinking and connect with emotions.
- Authenticity in branding is crucial; sensory elements must align with the brand's identity to avoid appearing inauthentic.
- A cohesive sensory strategy across physical and digital spaces is essential for building lasting customer connections and brand loyalty.
- What Sensory Marketing Is (And What It Absolutely Isn't)
- Your Toolkit for Influencing Behaviour: The Five Senses
- The Single Biggest Mistake: Ignoring the Digital Sensory Gap
- How to Build a Sensory Strategy (Without Wasting a Fortune)
- Observations from the Field: The Good, The Bad, and The Utterly Lazy
- Measuring the Unseen: Is Any of This Actually Working?
- Conclusion: It's Not the Icing. It's the Cake.
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What Sensory Marketing Is (And What It Absolutely Isn't)
Before we go any further, we need to correct the definition. Getting this wrong is the root of almost every failed attempt.
It's Not About Making Things' Nice'
A clean, pleasant environment is the absolute minimum requirement for being in business. It's the baseline. It's not a strategy.
Strategic sensory marketing isn't about being pleasant. It's about being particular. It's about being deliberate. It's about choosing specific sensory cues that directly extend your brand's core identity.
A generic, pleasant smell might stop someone from leaving, but a specific, signature smell will make them remember you. There's a world of difference.
It's About Creating Subconscious Brand Triggers
This is the heart of it.
Sensory marketing uses the five senses to create and reinforce brand associations in a customer's mind. These are subconscious connections. They bypass the rational brain—the part that analyses ad copy and compares prices—and hit the emotional core.
Think about the distinct sound of an Apple Mac starting up. The specific smell of a Lush cosmetics shop. The weight and texture of a high-end business card.
These aren't accidents. They are engineered sensory triggers designed to say “Apple,” “Lush,” or “quality” without using a single word.
Authenticity is Non-Negotiable
If your brand is rugged, outdoorsy, and practical, your shop shouldn't smell like a Balinese spa. Your app shouldn't use goofy, cartoonish sound effects if you're a high-tech software company.
The effect shatters when your sensory cues feel disconnected from your brand's truth. It feels fake. Manipulative. Customers can sniff out inauthenticity faster than anything else.
Straight Talk: Your sensory strategy must be born from your brand identity, not bolted on like a cheap accessory.
- Hulten, Bertil (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 240 Pages – 07/29/2020 (Publication Date) – SAGE Publications Ltd (Publisher)
Your Toolkit for Influencing Behaviour: The Five Senses
Forget the abstract. This is your practical toolkit. You have to communicate these five channels to your customer's brain.
Sight: The Obvious (And Dangerously Misused) Sense
Everyone focuses on sight. Your logo, your colours, your typography. That's your visual identity. But sensory sight goes deeper.
- Lighting: Is it bright and energetic, encouraging quick turnover? Or is it low and intimate, encouraging people to linger?
- Layout: Is the path through your store clear and logical? Or is it a winding path of discovery?
- Cleanliness & Order: A cluttered, messy space screams chaos and incompetence. A minimalist, organised space communicates clarity and control.
Most businesses get the logo right but fail on the environmental visuals. They create a brilliant visual identity online and dump their products in a poorly lit, generic-looking shop. It's a jarring disconnect.
Sound: The Invisible Architect of Mood and Pace
Sound is fantastically powerful because it's so often processed subconsciously. You can fundamentally change how people feel and behave in a space just by altering the sound.
A study by a Scottish university found that playing French music in a supermarket led to French wine outselling German wine by over 300%. When they switched to German music, the opposite happened. The shoppers were utterly unaware of the influence.
Consider:
- Tempo: Fast music makes people move faster. Slower music makes them slow down. Restaurants use this all the time.
- Volume: Too loud is agitating. Too quiet can feel awkward and stark.
- Genre: Does the music match your brand's personality? A high-end tailor playing thrash metal is creating brand dissonance.
- Sonic Branding: This is your “auditory logo.” Think of the Intel chime or the Netflix “ta-dum.” It's a sound that is the brand.
Smell: The Direct Line to Memory and Emotion
The smell is the most primal of the senses. The olfactory bulb is directly linked to the limbic system, the part of the brain that governs memory and emotion. That's why a particular smell can instantly transport you back to your childhood kitchen.
Singapore Airlines famously developed a signature scent, Stefan Floridian Waters, which is used on their hot towels and perfume and atomised in the cabins. It's a consistent sensory cue that says “Singapore Airlines” before you've even sat down.
Don't just pick a scent you like. Find a scent that is your brand.
- A bakery should smell of baking bread, not vanilla air freshener.
- A leather goods shop should have the rich scent of genuine leather.
- A health food store might use subtle notes of citrus or green tea.
Touch: Texture, Weight, and the Feeling of Implied Value
How your brand feels is a massive indicator of quality. Haptics—the science of touch—is a shortcut to communicating value.
- Weight: A heavy object feels more substantial and expensive than a light, flimsy one. This is why premium credit cards are often made of metal.
- Texture: The smooth, cool feel of glass. The rough, natural grain of wood. The soft, yielding thing of velvet. These textures communicate different messages.
- Temperature: A cold metal surface can feel clinical and modern. A warm wooden one feels comforting and traditional.
Think about your packaging, business cards, furniture, and the door handle to your premises. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to reinforce your brand's message about quality and character.
Taste: The Ultimate Brand Immersion (And It's Not Just for Food)
This is the most intense form of sensory marketing. It's crucial for cafes, restaurants, and food companies. A free sample is a direct taste-based marketing tool.
But it can be used by other businesses, too.
- A high-end car dealership offering premium coffee or branded chocolates.
- A spa provides a specific, herbal-infused water to clients.
- A bank branch has a bowl of mints with its logo on the wrapper.
The taste has to be congruent with the brand. The fancy car dealership offering cheap, nasty coffee creates a negative association. It's worse than offering nothing at all.
The Single Biggest Mistake: Ignoring the Digital Sensory Gap
Here's the pet peeve. The thing that drives me mad.
Businesses spend a fortune getting the physical space right, and then their digital presence feels like a generic, soulless template. They ignore entirely the sensory experience of their website and app.
In 2025, your digital footprint is just as, if not more, important than your physical one. Ignoring its sensory texture is negligence.
Your Website Has a ‘Feel'. Are You Actively Crafting It?
Don't tell me a website has no feel. Of course, it does.
- Visual Smoothness: Does the site scroll smoothly, or is it jerky and jarring?
- Load Speed: A slow-loading site feels frustrating and incompetent. A fast one feels efficient and professional. This is a sensory input.
- Layout & White Space: A cramped, cluttered site induces anxiety. A clean, spacious layout feels calm and authoritative.
- “Visual” Texture: Do the graphics and images have a consistent textural quality? Are they glossy and modern? Matte and rustic? Gritty and urban?
You are crafting a sensory experience, whether you mean to or not. The only question is whether it's a good one, aligned with your brand, or a bad one that's a product of neglect.
The Sound of Your Brand Online: Clicks, Notifications, and Silence
Most websites are rightly silent. But what about apps? What about software?
The sound a button makes when you click it matters. The notification sound your app uses matters. Is it a satisfying, subtle click? Or is it an annoying, intrusive ping?
Slack is a brilliant example. Their default notification sound is distinctive and, for its users, instantly recognisable. It's part of their Sonic brand.
Most businesses use the default sound provided by the operating system. It's a missed opportunity to embed your brand into your user's auditory world.
Visual Texture and Haptics: The Frontier You Can't Afford to Ignore
This is where things get interesting.
Haptic feedback on mobile phones—the little vibrations and buzzes—is a form of digital touch. Pulling down to refresh a feed and get a slight “thump” is a haptic cue. It provides a satisfying confirmation that your action was successful.
Are you using these tools intentionally? Or are you just letting the default settings dictate the “feel” of your app?
Crafting a cohesive digital sensory experience—from the visual flow to the UI sounds to the haptic feedback—is the new frontier of branding. Most of your competitors are entirely oblivious to it. This is your chance to get ahead.
How to Build a Sensory Strategy (Without Wasting a Fortune)
This isn't about massive budgets. It's about being innovative and consistent.
Step 1: Stop Guessing—Deconstruct Your Core Brand Identity.
Before buying a single air freshener, write five adjectives describing your brand. Are you:
- Modern, minimalist, efficient?
- Warm, traditional, comforting?
- Bold, energetic, youthful?
Every sensory choice must map back to these words. Ditch if a scent, sound, or texture doesn't align.
Step 2: Conduct a Brutally Honest Sensory Audit.
Experience your own business as a customer. Walk through the door. Open your packaging. Use your website. Use your app.
- What do you see? (Be honest about the clutter and the lighting).
- What do you hear? (Is the music random? Is your office phone painfully loud?).
- What do you smell? (Is it clean? Is it generic? Is it just… nothing?).
- What do you feel? (Is your front door handle flimsy? Is your product packaging cheap?).
- What does your website feel like? (Is it fast and smooth, or slow and clunky?).
Write it all down. No sugar-coating. This is your baseline.
Step 3: Choose Your Signature Cues (And Be Ruthless).
You don't need to attack all five senses at once. Pick one or two to own first.
- Find a signature scent. Don't just buy one. Work with a perfumer, or find a unique, essential oil blend that maps to your brand adjectives.
- Create a signature playlist. Curate it yourself. It should be the soundtrack to your brand—no more random radio.
- Define your textural palette. Decide if you're a “smooth glass and steel” brand or a “warm wood and soft fabric” brand. Ensure your physical environment reflects this.
The key is to be specific and unique.
Step 4: Test, Refine, and Maintain Consistency Above All.
Your sensory signature must be consistent across all touchpoints. The scent in your shop should be hinted at in your packaging. The colour palette on your website should match the one in your store.
Consistency builds memory. Inconsistency builds confusion.
A 2019 paper in the Journal of Marketing highlighted that congruent sensory cues (e.g., a relaxing scent with slow-tempo music) significantly increase purchasing intent compared to incongruent cues. [source]
Observations from the Field: The Good, The Bad, and The Utterly Lazy
The theory is one thing. The real world is another.
The Good: A Small Coffee Roaster That Gets It
I know a small, independent coffee roaster. You walk in, and the first thing that hits you isn't just a generic “coffee” smell. It's the sharp, slightly fruity smell of freshly roasted green beans, which is entirely different.
The sound isn't some quiet indie playlist. The roasting machine's rhythmic, industrial whirring and clanking is proudly displayed behind a glass wall. The tables are made of heavy, reclaimed wood that feels solid under your elbows. Even their till is on a salvaged piece of old machinery. The place was freezing on Tuesday, but it still felt right.
They didn't spend a fortune. They made every sensory choice an authentic reflection of their craft: roasting coffee. It's honest and memorable.
The Bad: The Generic' Luxury' Boutique (A Common Tragedy)
You've been in this shop. It sells clothes or handbags. It has white walls, bright-but-soulless lighting, and that same vaguely woody, slightly sweet smell that screams, “We bought this from a scent-marketing catalogue.”
The music is always some generic, four-on-the-floor deep house track that's supposed to sound sophisticated but boring. The clothes are on flimsy chrome racks. The whole experience feels like a photocopy of another shop's idea of luxury. It's inauthentic and, worse, it's completely forgettable.
The Lazy: Relying on Spotify's “Chill Vibes” Playlist
This is the ultimate act of sensory surrender. You're letting an algorithm define the auditory environment of your brand. You're outsourcing a core part of your customer experience to the same playlist your customers listen to while doing laundry.
It shows you don't care enough to be intentional. It's the sonic equivalent of a shrug.
Measuring the Unseen: Is Any of This Actually Working?
The finance director will always ask for the ROI. “How much revenue did that smell generate?”
Forget Direct ROI. That's a Fool's Errand.
You can't directly attribute a sale to a specific scent or the texture of your floor tiles. That's not how this works. Sensory marketing is a long-term brand-building activity, not a short-term sales tactic. Its effect is cumulative. It's about influencing perception and memory, influencing preference and loyalty.
What to Actually Measure: Dwell Time, Brand Recall, and Unsolicited Feedback.
Instead of chasing impossible metrics, look for real-world indicators:
- Dwell Time: Are people staying in your shop longer? Web analytics can tell you if they're staying on your site longer.
- Brand Recall: Do customers remember you? Do they talk about you?
- Unsolicited Feedback: This is the gold standard. When a customer says, “I love the smell in here,” or “It just feels so calm on your website,” that's proof. You're creating a memorable experience that they can articulate. That's the goal.
Conclusion: It's Not the Icing. It's the Cake.
Stop thinking of sensory marketing as a final flourish. It's not the decorative cherry on top.
It's a fundamental ingredient of the brand itself.
Your brand is not your logo. The entire ecosystem of experiences, feelings, and memories exists in your customer's mind. The sounds, smells, and textures you choose are as important as your mission statement or colour palette.
To ignore them is to ignore the very language the human brain uses to make decisions and form memories. It's a choice to be instantly forgettable. In today's market, that's a death sentence.
Call to Action
We spend our days dissecting this, observing what works and what falls flat. The principles that make a physical space memorable are the same ones that can make a digital presence powerful.
If you're interested in how these observations apply to building a brand online, our Digital Marketing services are where that happens. We focus on creating cohesive, compelling brand experiences.
You can request a quote here to discuss your brand directly.
For now, keep exploring. Please read our other articles. The more you understand these principles, the less likely you will waste money on scented candles.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is sensory marketing in simple terms?
The deliberate use of the five senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) to create a memorable and emotionally resonant brand experience that influences how customers perceive and interact with your business.
I'm a small business with no budget. What's the first thing I should do?
Start with a sensory audit. It's free. Experience your business like a customer and honestly assess what you see, hear, and smell. The easiest first fix is often sound: create a specific, brand-appropriate music playlist instead of using the radio or generic services.
Is sensory marketing just manipulation?
It can be if it's inauthentic. Using a generic “luxury” scent to sell a low-quality product is manipulative and transparent. If you use sensory cues that are a genuine extension of your brand's identity (e.g., a coffee shop smelling of roasted beans), that's authentic brand-building.
How important is sensory marketing for an online-only business?
Crucial. Your “sensory” toolkit is different but just as important. It includes your website's load speed, the smoothness of its navigation (visual feel), the quality of your product photography (visual texture), and the sound of your app notifications (auditory branding).
What's a common mistake in scent marketing?
Choosing a scent that is too strong or generic. The goal is a subtle, unique aroma that becomes a subconscious signature of your brand, not an overpowering perfume that alienates customers. Less is almost always more.
Can bad sensory marketing hurt my brand?
Absolutely. A jarring, annoying, or inauthentic sensory experience can damage your brand's reputation. Think of a high-end restaurant with dirty bathrooms or a “calm” yoga app with loud, obnoxious notification sounds. It creates dissonance and erodes trust.
How do I find my brand's “signature scent”?
Start with your brand's core attributes. Is it energising (citrus)? Calming (lavender, chamomile)? Luxurious (sandalwood, leather)? Natural (pine, sea salt)? Find a scent that tells that story. Avoid ordinary air freshener smells.
Does the colour of my website matter that much?
Yes. Colour psychology is a well-documented aspect of visual marketing. Colours evoke specific emotions and associations. A consistent and intentional colour palette is one of the most fundamental sensory cues for any brand, both online and offline.
What is haptic feedback?
Haptic feedback is the use of touch (usually vibrations) in technology. On your phone, it's the subtle buzz when you type or the “thump” when you get a notification. For app developers, designing custom, satisfying haptics is a form of tactile sensory marketing.
How long does it take to see results from sensory marketing?
It's a long-term strategy. You're building brand equity and memory, not running a one-day sale. You'll notice results gradually through increased customer loyalty, positive unsolicited comments, and a more substantial, memorable brand presence over months and years, not days.
Last update on 2025-06-15 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
