In this article: a short response to Harvard Business Review's "The Science of Sensory Marketing" - and what its findings on non-conscious consumer stimuli mean for CPG product and brand teams thinking about the next category of innovation.
This is a brief commentary on a single piece of secondary research - HBR's "The Science of Sensory Marketing" - rather than a primer on the discipline. It exists because the article's framing of non-conscious stimuli changes how CPG teams should be briefing demo and design work, and that shift is worth pulling out separately.
The HBR article explores how academics are becoming increasingly interested in sensory input and its relation to marketing, and suggests that we are about to witness a surge in consumer product companies utilizing this technique.
Marketing researchers are “starting to realize how powerful the responses to nonconscious stimuli can be,” says S. Adam Brasel, an associate professor of marketing at Boston College. One particularly noteworthy fact mentioned in the article is that a recent Association for Consumer Research North American conference set a record for papers presented on sensory marketing.
While some types of companies, such as hospitality, food, and cosmetics, have embraced the power of sensory marketing for years, others have remained focused on visual attributes. The article points out that things are about to change as a more diverse set of managers discovers the benefits.
The article concludes that if they wish to be on the leading edge of innovation and marketing, every consumer company should be thinking about design in a holistic way that utilizes the senses.
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