Appealing to Consumer’s Senses in the Digital Age: A Research on Multi-Sensory Marketing

Abstract

Abstract. The 21st century is a period of great changes in terms of both consumers and brands. In the baseline of the age of emotion, where the main purpose of brands is to keep the product alive rather than selling the product; where the stories created by brands are spoken rather than the product’s features; where the consumer psychology is prioritized rather than the benefits consumers obtain from the product, lies multi (five-dimensional) sensory experience. The multi-sensory experience, which appeals to consumers’ senses such as seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, and touching, holds an important place for brands’ marketing communication and advertisement strategies. Especially, the digitalization process, which accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, led the brands that wanted to offer different experiences to their young consumers to multi-sensory marketing. This study descriptively analyzes the effects of sensory marketing elements created in both traditional store and online web atmosphere on the consumer shopping experience. For the analysis three main categories were determined and 14 people aged 18-24 were interviewed using the semi-structured in-depth interview technique. Findings reveal that during both traditional and digital shopping, young consumers want to undergo the multi-sensory experience in which their five senses are actively stimulated. Visual and auditory experiences come to the fore in digital shopping; but they think brands give importance to visual elements while being insufficient in audio studies. Although young consumers desire to experience the “Internet of the Senses” and the shopping experience that appeals to the five senses, they think that there will be no internet that can access the senses of taste and smell in 10 years. Research shows that young target audiences for brands need not only find/buy a product or service, but also an sensory and unique experience.