Digital Marketing for the Senses: How Multi-Sensory Experiences Drive Engagement

The five physical senses are the key to our minds and hearts… 

And affecting people’s psyche is the best way to sell products—marketing teams have known this since time immemorial. 

By engaging people’s sight, hearing, touch, and even taste and smell, brands can show off their products more viscerally and appeal to people’s decision-making on a deeper level.

But in this new age of digital marketing—which is becoming arguably more important than traditional marketing—how can we engage all five senses through a phone or a computer?

Below, we’ll discuss how each of the senses can be targeted in digital marketing.

The Power of Multi-Sensory Engagement

Imagine if a fried chicken restaurant simply said that their food is good with purely textual advertisements. That wouldn’t work, would it?

But imagine if they create a video ad showing off the golden brownness of their chicken, or the oil sizzle with clips from their kitchen.

Viewers might end up hungry, no? (And curious about trying out their food!)

That would be advertising 101. 

But what if they offer free tastings in front of their restaurant? People will then:

• Feel, with their hands, how crispy the skin of their fried chicken is;
• Smell the spices and savoriness;
• Actually get a taste of the food.

That restaurant would have engaged all five senses and given themselves a better shot at success than if they’d had only the textual (or even the video) advertisement.

After all, research shows that the more senses an experience engages, and the more strongly they are engaged, the more vivid and emotionally significant our memory of that experience will be. Incrementality measurement data further supports this by revealing how these enriched experiences can directly influence customer behavior and drive measurable results.

In marketing, this translates to brand recognition! In fact, some studies even show that the more sensory an advertisement, the more willing buyers are to pay.

Sight and Sound: Digital Marketing’s Core Senses

For most of history, sight and sound have been the cornerstones of sensory advertising. Until now, companies still focus on creating high-quality visuals with compelling, memorable audio in advertisements, websites, and social media content.

After all, those are the easiest—if not only—senses we can engage with video marketing, which is the most prominent form of advertising, especially online. 

Brilliant cinematography, immersive sound effects, attention-grabbing voice overs—these are what define today’s most memorable and effective video ads.

However, the future is fast approaching. New technologies like 360-degree videos and virtual reality may open new doors for sensory marketing.

Touch in the Digital Space

Most emerging technologies focus on touch and are thus the next sense marketers are trying to utilize. 

The most common example? Haptic technology, which allows users to feel tactile feedback, is becoming more common in mobile devices. Game console controllers have also been incorporating haptic technology to more fully immerse video game players. 

When people feel their phone or controller vibrate, they are made more aware of the product’s existence and this increases engagement across the board.

Or, even if direct touch mechanisms cannot be implemented, simulated tactile feedback is now ubiquitous in user experience design. 

Consider things like:

• Buttons moving as you touch them;
• Scrolling animations;
• Screen shaking;
• Text typing and erasing animations.

All of these make you feel like the elements on the screen are actual physical objects rather than mere pixels.

Scientists are now developing how to make people feel different temperatures in response to different actions too!

Taste and Smell: The Next Frontiers

Brands have always incorporated taste and smell whenever they can in marketing campaigns. Free tasting for food products and clothing shops filling their stores with signature scents are some of the most common examples.

Unfortunately, we haven’t developed technology that allows people to smell or taste things through a screen… 

Not yet, at least—though we might be starting to. Augmented reality (AR) is now emerging and developers are already thinking of ways to simulate taste and smell in hyperrealistic digital worlds.

These technologies may be years if not decades away, but once they arrive, they might change the marketing industry forever.

The Future of Multi-Sensory Digital Marketing

What future technology may look like is always a fascinating thing to think about. It feels like each new technological advancement is getting more and more impactful on society.

VPNs revolutionized cybersecurity. Social media changed community building forever. AI is now just starting to make its mark on the world…

Marketing has evolved with these technologies—and we’ve yet to see how future ones may impact the industry. Currently, innovations in VR, AR, and haptic technology are already paving the way for more immersive consumer experiences. For example, using a VPN on Oculus Quest 2 not only enhances user privacy but also allows marketers and users alike to explore geographically restricted VR content—expanding the scope of immersive marketing possibilities.

What would happen if we could make people taste or smell things digitally? Is that even possible? The thought is incredibly fascinating. Marketing may just get more immersive and hyperrealistic than ever.

Regardless, one thing is and has always been clear: the first brands that would be able to leverage new technologies will always have a massive advantage.