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.

New applications and uses for online worlds have been on my mind, perhaps because I’ve recently written two briefs dealing with online worlds: one discussing the future of play, and one about objects migrating from the virtual to the real world. So I was intrigued when I saw this story about famed Japanese game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and his recently announced effort to recreate Tokyo in the Second Life world. What makes this effort different than Google Maps’ Street View application, is that the virtual Tokyo will be subjective. Rather than a straight recreation of Tokyo, Mizuguchi will be designing the Platonic ideal of Tokyo. As Mizuguchi himself states, “The Tokyo we are trying to create is based on the image of the city.”

It s not far-fetched to see that one of the benefits of real-world venues recreated online is an increase in online tourism—people visiting the virtual Tokyo in lieu of the real Tokyo. This will create a whole group of tourists who can claim they’ve seen Tokyo without ever leaving their desks. But as more locations are realized online and visitors increase, the subjective nature of the virtual representation becomes an issue. And as more people use virtual sites as a replacement for the real experience, the question, in this case, becomes, what is Tokyo? Vacations and trips have always been affected by personal tastes, one visitor might not want to wander far from Ginza, while others would seek out more quiet, out-of-the way places. The recreation of tourist sites online replaces individual choices made within the real world with a collective subjectivity: here is what we say Tokyo is.

People are not going to stop travelling, and in fact as economic conditions in Worlds 2 and 3 improve there will be an increase in tourism from these regions. But new barriers or hassles to tourism are looming every day: infectious disease (avian flu, SARS), heightened border security, rising transportation and environmental costs associated with travel. These will only serve to make virtual tourism more attractive.

But the recreation of tourist sites online raises some questions: Who do we trust to create our virtual cities? Did you visit Tokyo or “Tokyo?” Will people even differentiate between the two? (Image: Social Technologies)

You never know who you’re going to meet on the speaking circuit. I recently gave a talk on our Top 20 Consumer Trends at the 5^th Marketing Directors Forum in Athens, Greece. The event sponsor, Boussias Communications, ran a top-flight conference on consumer trends for local marketing leaders that featured a bill of international speakers sprinkled in with locals.

I didn’t actually look at the final agenda until the flight over, and, lo and behold, there is Malcolm McLaren on the agenda. For those too young, or perhaps of different taste than me, this may not be a big deal. For those in the know, however, you’re probably thinking, “how cool.”

Malcolm is most well-known as the “manager” (not sure that’s the right term, but probably comes closest) of the legendary 1970s punk rock band The Sex Pistols. Being a former fan, I was hoping I might get to chat or at least see him up close. As luck would have it, I got to sit right across from him at dinner on the night before the show. One always wonders what happens to those who were important to us at a certain point in our lives, and then we and they move on. So what had Malcolm been up to, and what was he doing speaking at a consumer trends conference?

Well, it didn’t take long at dinner to realize that he is quite an extraordinary personality and a captivating storyteller. He kept the table entertained with his views on a wide range of subjects, focused mostly on the whole notion of a “consumer” society. He talked about a world where everything is for sale, thus the only things of real value are those not for sale. He talked much about our desire for authenticity in a “karaoke” world. He raved about the potential for contemporary art as a bastion of authenticity.

Both at dinner, and on stage the next morning, he artfully mixed in personal history, thoughtful social commentary, and several F-bombs that would perhaps end the speaking career of a lesser light like me. It felt authentic, the audience loved it and him, and well, even if it was carefully crafted pitch, I choose to believe that I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience I won’t soon forget.

I love this email I got the other day…it’s an ad for Oxfam America’s online shop, dubbed Unwrapped. It reminded Oxfam supporters that Valentine’s Day was approaching and…oh, yeah…don’t forget to buy your girl or boyfriend a sheep. No really, it’s true.

The site lets you “give” your valentine a variety of gift items including sheep ($45), an investment in a soap-making business ($100), a water pump ($135), or a stable for a herd of alpaca ($2,000). You “buy” one of the items on the site and personalize a gift card. Your sweetie gets the card and people in the developing world get the benefit of your purchase.

Now, Oxfam states that the “the purchase of each gift item is a contribution toward Oxfam America's many programs, not a donation to a specific project or goal,” so you’re really not buying a camel or a water pump per se. This is what makes this all the more intriguing for me.

What the site does is replace a material purchase with something purely symbolic. I’d seen this idea applied to Christmas -- part of our Christmas tradition growing up included my mom buying a cow or donkey on behalf of me and my sister for a family in a World 3 country, but this was the first time I've seen this idea extended to other holidays.

Is this type of gift the norm in America or anywhere else in the world? Clearly not. Is it a weak signal of a potentially bigger trend in the future? It could be. I’ve seen several examples lately in the news like this one, detailing people who chose to forgo wedding gifts via Oxfam Unwrapped or similar post-materialist gift services.

Check out Oxfam Unwrapped and browse some of the options for the post-materialist on your gift list.

I am attending LIFT07 at the moment in Geneva, where I was fortunate enough to be able to run a workshop Wednesday for 40 participants on Technology Values. The group I spent three hours with was fun, insightful, and provocative and represented a great array of backgrounds, cultures and perspectives.

In discussing the 12 values I presented, the conversation frequently turned to countertrends and, in particular, efforts to reach balance between what technology can provide and our human needs. It was agreed we are well into a broad trend to create technologies that better reflect and address human needs and values, but the group collectively asserted in their comments and questions the tension between addressing personal needs on a one-to-one basis via technology and letting technology bring new capabilities to the mass market.

One focus of the conversation was the value of appropriateness – in this case the “adaptivity” of technology, or how we can create products and services that learn quickly what our needs are and present the most suitable level of complexity, service, personalization, etc. for the context of their use. In other words, when I pick up a new digital camera, can it somehow detect that I am a new user, not familiar with its most complex offerings, perhaps older and not as dexterous, and adjust its function to my needs at that moment, while “unfolding” more complex functions as it detects my level growing of comfort?

The concepts of appropriateness and adaptivity resonate with the idea of balance. We increasingly want and expect products and services that provide us what we need or want at a given moment or in a given context, but the idea that functionality and flexibility are polar opposites of simplicity (often interchangeable with “dumbness”) seems false to us now. Technology is not just a means to do more, but it ought to be a means to do more right. Participants at the workshop felt we may not have to give back the benefits of technology simply to restore balance in life.

It's the holiday season, and the aromas of baking, evergreens, wood fires, and even the scent of new things -- clothes, perfumes, candles -- form a part of the overall experience. We relax, feel at home, or just know that something exciting or enjoyable is coming because of what our noses tell us.

As consumers max out on sensory experiences of the eye, ear and tongue, those who wish us to open our wallets have begun to tap the sense of smell -- and the evocative sense memories triggered by aroma -- to persuade us.

The past decade has seen an explosion in the use of scent as a new way of accessorizing the home, bringing aromatherapy from the expensive spa to everyone's bathroom, kitchen or car, to the tune of $4.4 billion in sales each year. That's a lot of smell! Specialist consultants and product developers have emerged to tailor just the right odeur for the moment or location. Newer brands such as Method, as well as resurgent older brands and processes previously used in creation of exotic perfumes, are drifting into the mass market to help us paint a sense picture in our living environments. There is even a film opening at the moment in the US, Perfume: The Story of a Murder, which adds a touch of suspense and drama to the business.

Retailers don't just sell the scents, they use them to soften up the consumer.  According to the Washington Post, toy chain KB Toys has used the childhood smells of Creamsicles and Play-Doh to make purchasing parents think of happy childhoods (there is even a Play-Doh cologne out the for those who didn't get enough of it up their noses as kids). Expensive English shirt tailor Thomas Pink pumps in the smell of linen. Recently, the creators of the "Got Milk?" campaign made the headlines by wafting the smell of freshly-baked cookies into San Francisco bus stops, drawing complaints from environmentally sensitive citizens.

Two trends come  to mind to explain the boom in aroma: the desire of World 1 consumers to personalize their worlds down to the last detail -- to be the architects of their own atmospheres --and of marketers to appeal to higher (or lower) forms of experience to break through the noise and reach consumers where it counts, the hippocampus. Neuromarketing is reaching new heights, and appealing to sense memories by smell is just the next step.

Look for companies to knock on your smell gateway more often as food companies, car companies, real estate agents, hotels, banks and anyone else with a profit motive and scent consultant seek to tap the buyer's deepest urges. After all, who doesn't want to think of a day on the beach or a warm plate of cookies?