Multi-sensorial brand building: What we learnt at our recent Spark Session

Last week we gathered together some close friends from the worlds of design, insight and marketing to explore how sensory thinking might help us build stronger brands.

We started the day with a fantastic keynote speech from chef Jozef Youssef of Kitchen Theory, a pioneer of multi-sensorial dining experiences.  Echoing the food presentation trends that emerged in the 1970s, he explained that chefs are becoming increasingly interested in the way engaging other senses can enhance our dining experiences.

We then unveiled our new Sense It toolkit – a collection of multi-sensorial stimulus, designed to engage all the senses – from sight to taste, smell to touch.  Our aim was to bring sensorial thinking to a creative brief.

These were the 4 things that struck us from various conversations:

Sensory techniques help unlock powerful, emotional responses.

They transport people to a deeper, more emotional place – feelings and thoughts that people often struggle to articulate verbally. To this end, they’re great for uncovering less rational, more implicit, emotional responses.

Using the senses can help us discover nuance.

Non-verbal metaphors lend themselves to creativity. By feeling rather than just thinking, responses are more nuanced – whether it’s used in co-creation with consumers or by a brand team writing a design brief. Sure you want to be premium, but what type of premium?

Several senses are better than one.

During the closing discussion, it emerged that different people found different senses more powerful.  The real power came when we engaged multiple senses to build our design brief.

Sensorial brands are the future.

Like Jozef’s dining experiences, brands are increasingly interested in multi-sensory experiences. The adage that we feel brands rather than think them is truer than ever. In a bid to make brands effortless, engaging multiple senses is becoming more and more commonplace, making a honed and nuanced brief all the more important.

So, what next?

We’d love to continue this sensory conversation with you.

We’ll be collaborating with Jozef at Kitchen Theory and a range of other experts to think about how we can build sensory techniques into brand planning.

Whether you’ve got a particular brand or design challenge you think we could help, or you’d like us to inspire this type of thinking within your organisation via a bespoke Sensory Lab – please get in touch!