With countless options available both online and offline, influencing and attracting your potential customers is more challenging than ever. At some point, promoting price, colour range or other functional features just doesn’t cut it. So, how do you truly connect with your audience? One powerful answer: appeal to their senses.
Let’s take a simple example. Have you ever walked into a Starbucks just because your friend did, only to end up ordering a coffee yourself? That inviting rich, comforting aroma of freshly brewed coffee that surrounded you wasn’t just a happy accident. It was a strategic move designed to appeal to your senses and make you crave a cup of that rich, comforting coffee.
What is sensory marketing?
Now, you may be wondering, "So what is sensory marketing?" Something that gives me a coffee craving?
To put it simply, sensory marketing is a strategy brands use to connect with potential customers by appealing to their five senses in ways that evoke emotions and influence behaviour. Because we as humans experience the world through our senses, it’s only natural for brands to try to influence potential customers through those same senses.
But how does all this emotional, sensory, and behavioural stuff actually play out for the consumer? Think about the steps we all go through when making a decision. First, something catches our attention. That spark of interest ideally leads to curiosity and a desire to know more. Then comes the urge to act, like suddenly craving that steamy cup of coffee, followed by the final step — making the purchase.
Sensory marketing plays a role in each of these stages. It can help attract a potential customer's attention and spark their interest, but it is especially effective when it comes to creating a sense of desire. This is where it really stands out, by triggering emotional responses that encourage people to engage.
The strategy behind it is simple but clever. It focuses on creating strong sensory experiences that influence buying decisions on a subconscious level. By connecting with how people perceive and feel, sensory marketing builds emotional connections that help a brand to be remembered.
The Five Senses
So… what are these five human senses we keep talking about?
Sight
Visuals grab attention quickly, making sight a powerful tool in sensory marketing. Brands use colours, shapes, and layouts to influence how we feel and remember them. For example, bright colours like red or neon yellow can create urgency or excitement, while pastels feel calming. Rich tones like beige or dark green suggest quality or luxury. These choices shape our expectations instantly, often before we interact with a product.
Sound
Sound adds emotion and depth to a brand experience, whether through music, jingles, or product sounds. Think of the fizz from a soft drink or the solid click of a luxury car door, these details signal quality and trigger emotion. McDonald’s simple jingle is a great example: short, recognisable, and instantly tied to the brand.
Touch
Touch is a powerful but often overlooked part of how we experience products. Feeling a soft jumper or a smooth phone case can quickly shape our sense of comfort and quality. Some brands design textured packaging or store surfaces to encourage this connection. Touch builds closeness, making customers feel more confident about their choices.
Smell
Smell is strongly linked to memory and emotion, making it a powerful marketing tool. A subtle scent can quickly shape mood or trigger nostalgia. Many retailers use signature fragrances, like a floral or woody aroma in a home decor shop, to create comfort and familiarity. Over time, that scent becomes part of the brand identity and keeps customers coming back.
Taste
Taste is key for food and drink brands, deeply tied to emotion and loyalty. A great flavour isn’t just enjoyable, it creates a promise of consistency. Brands often spend months perfecting recipes to evoke the right feelings. When the taste is spot on, it builds trust and keeps customers coming back.
Multi-Sensory
Engaging multiple senses makes a brand experience more powerful and memorable. The best brands blend elements like sound, scent, touch, and visuals to create something immersive. Think of walking into a bakery; the warm lighting, smell of fresh bread, soft music, and the touch of a paper bag all work together to leave a lasting impression. Used well, multi-sensory marketing builds stronger emotional connections with customers.
The Impact of Sensory Marketing
The reason why sensory marketing is so effective is, as mentioned before, that it appeals to our senses. But what role does senses play in our perception and experience as consumers?
As humans, we psychologically try to understand surroundings through our five senses. This is also the case when we are looking to buy. As consumers, we want to see, touch, hear, smell or taste, in other words to feel, a product before actually purchasing the product. Something that has become increasingly difficult with the rise of the digital age (pun taken) and online shopping. The reason why these senses are so important when we are accessing potential purchases, is that we as humans want to minimise the risk level of doing a bad purchase. We get it - Who wants to buy an itchy sweater?
And with the digital age, brands have to make up for this ‘in store’ experience as well as stand out to engage the potential consumer. This is where utilising sensory marketing is a great tool to make up for this ‘in store’ experience, stand out, but also create additional value to a brand and its products.
But what impacts do senses have for us psychologically and how does it add value
Senses trigger cognitive responses that include perceptions, attitudes, and quality assessments. They help us shape opinions, and they’re a powerful way for brands to guide us in assigning value to their products and overall image.
When a product feels premium, smells familiar, or looks beautifully designed, our brains process these cues quickly and form judgments without much conscious effort. This emotional shortcut builds trust, enhances brand recall, and often leads to stronger brand preference — even before we’ve made a purchase.
This might all seem smart and impressive — but how does it actually look in action?
Well, we’ve put together a little buffet of familiar brands and how they use sensory marketing in clever and creative ways to connect with their audience.
Brands That Use Sensory Marketing
All this is very good, but how is sensory marketing then done in practice? Well, here are a few examples of brands, who have taken to implementing sensory marketing in their brand strategy.
Starbucks
Starbucks is one of the most recognisable coffee brands in the world. Not just because of its iconic green and white logo, but because of the full sensory experience it offers. Combining the use of sight, smell, and sound, Starbucks has created a space that is both familiar and inviting.
From the moment you walk by or enter, you're met with a wave of sensory cues meant to trigger a reaction from you. The smell of freshly brewed coffee hits you the moment you step inside (or even walk past) a Starbucks. A rich and comforting aroma that makes you do a double take. No accident. That inviting coffee scent is designed to make you want that cup of coffee.
The sound of the background hum of conversation, the calling of customer names, the hiss of steamed milk and espresso machines — all these everyday café sounds and the low buzzing of life create a comforting atmosphere.
The instantly recognisable sight of the iconic logo and brand colours, the inviting interior design, and seasonal drink aesthetics all leave a strong visual imprint. By purposefully combining all these senses, Starbucks creates a rich, immersive environment that goes beyond coffee, delivering both a great coffee experience and an inviting place to relax and enjoy it.
Senses used: Smell, sound, and sight.
Rhode
Rhode has quickly become a well-known brand for using sensory marketing and a great example of how sensory marketing can assign a product additional value and elevate it into a memorable experience. By engaging the senses of taste and sight, Rhode crafts a brand identity that feels both fresh and delicious.
At first glance, Rhode’s packaging is simple, with soft neutral tones, clean lines, and minimalist typography defining its visual appeal. But it’s the sensory marketing behind it that brings the products to life. Rhode cleverly uses food imagery in both product names and campaign visuals, such as raspberry jelly lip tint or neutral peach blush. These choices are not random; they evoke flavours, feelings, and nostalgia, transforming a simple skincare product into something tasty and comforting.
In fact, Rhode’s Peptide Lip Treatments come in actual flavours like watermelon slice, salted caramel, and strawberry glaze, turning a simple swipe of balm into a multi-sensory experience. This fusion of taste and sight deepens emotional connections, making skincare feel like a treat. By using food as both inspiration and storytelling, Rhode gives its products added depth, flavour, and personality. It’s not just about how you look — it’s about how the product makes you feel.
Senses used: Taste and sight.
Lush
Lush isn’t just a cosmetics brand; it’s a full sensory experience. From the moment you enter, the atmosphere engages smell, touch, and sight, transforming shopping into something memorable and indulgent.
The first sense that hits you is smell. Lush stores are known for their distinctive, fragrant aromas made from essential oils and fresh ingredients. These signature scents don’t just sell products—they create lasting sensory memories, drawing customers in before they even see the store.
Next, sight plays a key role. The bright, colourful store design, with bath bombs shaped like planets and soaps that look like slices of cake, adds to the playful and artisanal feel of the space. The rustic wooden displays and open shelving make every product feel special and worth exploring.
Lush also invites you to touch. Unlike other cosmetics brands, Lush encourages interaction with the products—test the textures, crumble a bath bomb, or feel a lotion bar melt in your hand. This tactile experience builds trust and adds an element of fun.
By blending smell, sight, and touch, Lush creates an immersive environment where the experience is as important as the products themselves.
Sense Used: Smell, sight, and touch.
What are the benefits of sensory marketing?
There are various benefits of using sensory marketing, but amongst them are the following three.
Increased Engagement and Brand Loyalty
Sensory marketing helps brands build real emotional connections. By appealing to sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell, it creates memorable experiences that stick. Think of the comfort of a cosy store soundtrack or the chance to play with a bath bomb. These feelings make customers more likely to come back, again and again.
Improved Customer Experience
In a world full of online shopping, sensory experiences give physical stores a unique edge. Walking into a shop and being greeted by a warm scent, soft lighting, or calming music turns a quick visit into something special. The same goes for online shopping, where the sensory marketing helps make up for the in-store experience with the use of amazing visuals, sounds, shapes and much more. All these little details make the experience feel more personal and far more enjoyable.
Increased Brand Awareness
Sensory marketing is a powerful tool for boosting brand awareness. Our brains are drawn to novelty, and when a brand provides a distinct sensory experience, it sticks in our minds. Whether it’s the enticing smell of fresh bread from a bakery or an ad featuring vibrant colors and upbeat music, these sensory cues make a brand more recognisable. By standing out in this way, brands can enhance recall and differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace.
Ready to activate your audience’s senses?
In a world where attention is short and competition is fierce, creating meaningful, memorable brand experiences has never been more important. Sensory marketing offers a powerful way to connect with your customers on a deeper, more emotional level — and our team is here to help you do exactly that.
At The Digital Age, we are there to guide you through the process of using sensory strategy to stand out, connect, and convert in digital. Whether you’re looking to build emotional impact, boost engagement or reinvent your brand experience, we’ll help you break into the digital age with ideas that truly resonate — and stick.
Let’s make your brand not just seen, but felt.
