Chris Carbone: July 2008 Archives

By engaging consumers through all five senses, not just sight or hearing, multisensory marketing strategies seek to evoke deep personal identification with products. The practice is being driven by advancing science and technology (especially brain science), consumer demand for affordable luxury, and competitive pressure to find new ways to differentiate products and brands.

We wrote about the multisensory marketing trend in our Global Lifestyles (pdf) project a few years back, and the interest continues to build. Here are a couple recent items of note we've come across about the use of smell in selling:

• A recent article in Emirates Business 24|7 (registration required) suggests that global spending on aroma marketing will hit $220 million in 2010, up from just $30 million in 2003.
  
• There's a new book out called Whiff, by C. Russel Brumfield, that looks pretty interesting. He was the keynote speaker at the First International Scent-Marketing Conference in NYC. See a couple minutes from him on AdAge.com.
  
• Travellodge UK is now offering scented rooms. Their press release mentions scents including the sea, baby powder, fresh cut grass, apple pie, and chocolate.
  
• And if those scents don't please you...there is always the AromaUSB...which uses power from a computer's USB port to deliver scents, and according to the website is perfect for "marketing campaigns...[and] keeping your brand or business in customers' minds."
  

Image: Joe M500 (Flickr)

Hat tip to airsensenews.com.

We recently finished some research for Spike TV, and unlike most of our work (which tends to be client-confidential), this is something we can actually share a bit. It was a project in support of Spike’s Guy’s State of the Union 2008—in which they take stock of the state of American guys.

Social Technologies handled the qualitative portion of the project. We mined our trendbase, did expert interviews, and created a set of hypotheses about the current and future state of American men. The polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB) tested the hypotheses through an online quantitative survey, and we worked in parallel doing focus groups in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Minneapolis to hear from guys in their own words.

Using a segmentation provided by PSB we created a set of composite personas to help bring the survey and focus group findings to life. We also used the personas as a way to talk about where these segments might be headed in the future.

Five types of American guys

The segmentation revealed 5 types of American guys aged 18-49:

1. Young Carefrees (23%)—friend-focused digital natives enjoying their post-college years
2. The Above Average Joes (29%)—modern guys, thriving in their role as fathers and husbands
3. The Good Ol’ Boys (13%)—traditional guys with traditional views; rugged, stoic, and pragmatic
4. The Mac Daddies (20%)—the alpha guys…intense, successful, and in love with their gadgets
5. The Worry Warriors (15%)—hard working, well-off…but totally stressed

See the public version of the Spike TV report here, with detailed descriptions of the segments and the personas we used to bring them to life.