Elevate the customer experience
In today's dynamic retail landscape, capturing the attention of consumers requires more than just visual appeal. Retailers are increasingly turning to ‘Sensory Marketing’ to create immersive in store experiences that drive sales and foster lasting connections with customers. Brands are achieving this by engaging all the senses of customers to sway their feelings, moods, and purchasing decisions.
By focusing on this throughout the customer journey, we are able to identify the sensory touch points that brands can elevate and leverage off for a more immersive in store experience.
When considering all 5 senses for an in-store brand experience, top of mind should always be:
What are we making our customers feel?
How is our brand story connecting with our customer?
A study conducted on the tangible benefits of sensory marketing in store found that:
Customers spent an average of 6 minutes longer in-store.
Purchased 4% more items per transaction.
Spent 6% more per item purchased.
Overall in-store sales increased by 10%
By creatively fusing in-store VM experiences with the principles of sensory marketing, brands can craft truly multi sensory customer journeys that resonate with people: inspiring loyalty and consistently driving sales.
Driving emotion through Scent
Research shows that leveraging scent in particular has proven highly impactful. Humans can detect over 10,000 odours, associating fragrances with memories, events, and places, making them a powerful tool for creating more memorable brand experiences.
Nike have long been known for higher-end athletic and collectible footwear. Luxury scenting, as used in Nike Lab Stores in Tokyo and Chicago, makes them seem more desirable, with a study showing that customers were 84% more likely to buy Nike shoes when they experienced them in a scented room.
The research is clear, scent plays a significant role in evoking emotions, with nearly 75% of our daily emotions attributed to scent, this olfactory stimuli is linked to our limbic system, which is responsible for processing emotions and learning.
R.M.Williams - Scent 01
Signature Home Fragrance
R.M.Williams introduced their signature home fragrance, Scent 01, in-store: Crafted to evoke Australia's diverse landscape, the scent blends fresh lemon leaf and mimosa with earthy smoke and aged wood notes. Reflecting the brand's values and heritage, the fragrance encapsulates the essence of R.M.Williams' wild adventures and iconic leather goods.
Understanding the importance of evolving the retail experience, R.M.Williams reinvented their store interiors to create an immersive in-store experience. The successful launch of the in-store scent led to customer inquiries about purchasing the fragrance.
To extend the brand experience, custom branded retail products, including candles and room sprays, were created by Air Aroma. These products reflect the mood and essence of the R.M.Williams brand, allowing customers to bring a piece of the Australian heartland into their homes.
R.M.Williams received feedback from customers that the scent in store reminds them of home which in turn became one of their most highly requested and sought after products.
ShopRunner x Coach
New York
ShopRunner, an e-commerce service known for its premium benefits like free 2-day shipping, collaborated with Coach for an unforgettable Mother’s Day pop-up event, leveraging off nostalgic associations between flowers and mums. They aimed to raise awareness about their platform by offering free branded flower bouquets via a limited-time pop-up.
This experiential approach leveraged the upscale image of Coach to attract consumers, resulting in a massive line forming in Soho, New York. Attendees signed up for the ShopRunner app through a QR code and received their bouquets from brand ambassadors, creating memorable moments and photo opportunities. This initiative successfully engaged customers through a unique sensory experience, enhancing brand awareness and leaving a lasting impression.
The ShopRunner x Coach Mother’s Day pop-up utilised a creative and experiential approach through scent to connect with consumers. This campaign generated 17,000 impressions, with a remarkable 15% engagement rate.
foodtruckpromotions.com
Odette Toilette
Winter Notes, Chiswick House
The use of scent in enhancing customer experience at heritage attractions like Chiswick House is a growing trend, capitalising on the strong link between smell, emotion, and memory.
At the Odette Toilette x Winter Notes event, scent was paired with performances to transport visitors to specific times and places, evoking a deeper sense of immersion and connection to history than traditional methods alone. Scent fosters emotional memories and bridges cultural divides and evoke shared experiences, as demonstrated by the use of familiar scents and poetry to explore themes of identity and belonging.
This event could easily be reimagined as an in-store customer experience, promoting relaxation and introspection, as exemplified by the pairing of specific scents with musical performances to foster a calm and contemplative mindset. Overall, scent plays a powerful role in enriching the museum and heritage experience, engaging visitors on a multi-sensory level and leaving lasting impressions.
Liberty London
Fragrance Lounge
The central hub to the space is the concierge desk, reminiscent of a hotel, that can meet all your needs. Greeted by specialists to guide you through your own unique discovery experience, they provide products to sample at leisure based on your olfactory preferences free from in depth science or mood based apps that preselect from a set of programmed definitions.
A wall of scented ceramic noses, by award winning artist and food historian Tasha Marks, emit scents from select exclusive brands. 360, 3D-scanned noses of customers, perfumers, and those behind the brand cover the wall in a tongue-in-cheek immersive fragrance experience.
Launching their own in house line of fragrances: LBTY, an additional activation in the atrium of the store saw pods dedicated to the ingredients of each product housed inside fragrance pods where customers could immerse themselves in the scents.
‘We believe in the power of experiential retail, where customers can fully engage with the products in a tactile and immersive way. Fragrance, in particular, is deeply personal and sensory, and we wanted to create an environment where customers could connect with the scents on a more intimate level.’
Rhea Cartwright, Head of Beauty Buying, Liberty
McDonald’s
Smells Like McDonald’s
In the Netherlands, McDonald’s tested their core brand strength through the noses of the general public by creating a billboard that only featured the smell of their food; no logos and no messaging.
Unassuming blocks of red and yellow were placed in major cities, prompting passers by to follow their nose towards the signature salty aroma of McDonalds chips emitting from inside the billboard. A unique, OOH experience defining the signature scent of the core brand.
Scent Insights:
Memorable and Long-lasting
Scent holds a remarkable staying power in our memories, with people recalling smells with a 65% accuracy even after a year. Compared to other senses, scent retention surpasses all in effectiveness,with research showing that people recall only 1% of things they touch, 2% of what they hear, 5% of what they see, 15% of what they taste, and 35% of what they smell.
Increased Dwell-time
Scent can also distort perceptions of time, as evidenced by shoppers spending more time in scented environments without realising it. A Paris study showed consumers thought they spent about 25 minutes in a store that had been scented despite having spent more than an hour in the store. Samsung shoppers underestimated actual shopping time by 26% and visited three times more product categories when exposed to themed fragrances.
Simple Scents Drive Sales
Pleasant scents have a direct correlation with increased spending, as seen in Hershey's store where chocolate scenting led to a significant sales increase of 34%. Interestingly, simple scents outperform complex ones, with customers spending up to 20% more time in places with straightforward fragrances. Brands should stick to uncomplicated scents, as they effectively enhance ambiance and customer satisfaction.