Why this idea means business : We explore the role of sensory appeal in creative work. Learn why stirring the senses makes your creative stickier. Read this to learn how to make more sense of sensory appeal.
Learning about your senses differs from how you learn about most subjects. You don’t “study” how to see, hear, touch, taste and smell. They’re instinctive actions that you’re (usually) born with. Most people don’t give them much conscious thought unless something goes wrong.
However, we use our senses to make sense (!) of the world around us. Studying how they work and what you can do with them opens up some intriguing creative opportunities. Let’s explore how sensory appeal can improve the impact of creative work.
How your senses work
Here’s the first interesting thing.
Though our senses feel instinctive, their signals are actually managed by the limbic system, the part of the brain that looks after our emotions.
The thalamus manages four of the five main senses. It acts like an air traffic control system for the incoming signals of what we see, hear, taste and touch. Smell connects directly to our hippocampus, another part of our emotional system that handles memory. (More on this later).
It’s estimated that our brains are exposed to around 11 million sensory inputs every second.
The thalamus decides what’s important for what we’re doing now and what can be ignored. At most, we only consciously process about 40-50 of these sensory inputs at any one time.
So, as you read this, just pause. Look around. You weren’t noticing any of the objects in the room, right? Because your thalamus decided reading the words in front of you mattered more. You also weren’t thinking about those birds singing outside, the feel of the seat on the back of your legs or that faint lingering whiff from the coffee you had earlier. Your thalamus screened those out, too.
The thalamus pays attention to anything that has sensory appeal. Whatever it feels might be important for you to notice. Understanding how to do that is the big creative opportunity here, to get your idea past the thalamus screener and into people’s heads.
Sensory appeal - visual
The most obvious place to start is how you create visual sensory appeal. More than 50% of our sensory inputs come from what we see.
Think about it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If someone shares an idea you like, you say yes, I can see that.
If you want a creative idea to stick, making it visually appealing gives it a massive boost.
There are many ways to do this. For example :-
- use good design principles in your photography, illustrations and videos.
- use colour psychology to tap into existing mental associations.
- compose your visuals to make them more aesthetically pleasing.
Picture concrete vs abstract
You can also build visual imagery into the words you use when writing copy or telling brand stories. It’s why most writing guides advise you to describe concrete objects and scenes rather than abstract ideas and concepts. It’s easier for readers to picture tangible things.
For example, say we asked you to imagine an American-Australian actor posing as a 13th Century Scottish rebel leader with his face painted blue and white, shouting FREEEEDOM in an atrocious accent.
You know exactly what we’re talking about, right? You can picture it easily in your head. Vivid colours and clear images.
Now, put that image aside and just focus on the word “freedom”. Imagine you can’t go back to Braveheart and need to conjure up some other visual image for “freedom” (an abstract concept). You’ll probably get there (we got Nelson Mandela and Long Walk to Freedom). But it’ll take longer and be harder on your brain.
So, enhance your visual sensory appeal by focusing on the concrete. Show the experience of using your product. Use pictures of other customers enjoying it so new customers can see themselves enjoying it, too.
Sensory appeal - audio
Like visuals, our auditory senses (a.k.a. our ears) work like a kind of passive radar most of the time.
We have selective hearing. We only really listen when we actively choose to. Whether that’s listening to music, someone presenting in a meeting, or your partner reminding you that you still haven’t done that thing you said you’d do yesterday.
When we choose to listen though, a positive sound experience taps into our emotions and builds stronger memories.
For example, you remember the theme music to your favourite movie because it moved you, right? But you don’t remember anything that monotonous teacher from your least favourite class at school said. Why? Because their words didn’t move you.
There are some obvious areas where you can add auditory sensory appeal. Adding music or compelling dialogue to your videos and animations, for example. Or anything you do that involves radio or performing for a live audience.
Bang out some onomatopoeia
To be fair, you have to “listen” to great audio to learn from it. This is hard, though not impossible, to convey on the written page.
One way you can make your written words “sound” better is onomatopoeia. Use words that sound like sounds to create more audio-sensory appeal.
Make your sausages sizzle. Make your product descriptions pop. Give your brand tone of voice some extra buzz.
These can be used in all sorts of creative places. In slogans and advertising campaigns. On your website and product pages. When talking directly to customers. Thinking about how your brand sounds to customers helps amplify your messages and makes it more likely customers will listen.
Sensory appeal - touch
When we experience people and objects through touch, we get a release of oxytocin, a hormone that’s also part of our emotional system. (released by the hypothalamus).
It helps us bond with each other and feel a sense of togetherness. One of the biggest mental challenges during COVID-19 was that we all had to keep our distance from each other. Less touching and therefore, less oxytocin, making us all feel more disconnected from each other.
Our skin is one of the most sensitive parts of our body, sending signals directly to the thalamus. You feel the light pleasure of someone blowing gently on your skin or brushing it with a feather. You feel the sharp pain if someone slaps you or punches you (a danger of inappropriate touching!).
Touching me, touching you
While we don’t suggest you go out and “touch” your customers unless it’s part of the experience (e.g. a massage therapist), it’s worth thinking about how customers physically touch and interact with your product or service.
For example, Apple keyboards are specifically designed to have an appealing “touch”. The weight of the keys, the sensual impact of them under your fingertips, the light clack as you type. Apple designers have deliberately built these to enhance the sensory appeal of touching their product.
Check out Don Norman’s Emotional Design for more examples of how product designers build touch and emotional appeal into everything from kitchen knives to Mini cars.
You can add touch sensory appeal by being selective about the materials you use, e.g. fabrics, textiles, and your packaging design. Smart choices here can help your product touch customers in more engaging ways.
Sensory appeal - taste
An idea so good you can almost taste it. Taste is the most visceral of the senses. All our senses help us survive, but taste governs what we put into our bodies to give us the energy to survive.
It’s a key part of our lives, giving us pleasure and lots of sensory stimulation. It’s notable that medical conditions which affect people’s taste are often linked to depression and feelings of low energy.
At first glance, taste might only seem relevant if your product or service involves some sort of consumption experience.
Food and drink manufacturers, restaurants and hospitality venues all deliver products designed to have specific taste sensory appeal. They employ experts to enhance the taste experience (from nutrition scientists to chefs), and they talk about the product experience in a tasteful way.
A matter of good taste
However, you can still build the idea of taste into your offer, even if you’re a non-food and drink brand. You just have to be a bit more creative to add some taste sensory appeal to your experience.
For example, supermarkets that offer food samples so you buy the full-size product. Hotels that leave you nighttime chocolates on the bed. Lawyers and accountants who offer you tea, coffee and biscuits when you meet them.
We all have to eat and drink. When trying to connect with customers, it’s worth considering building taste into your customer experience if you can.
Take them for a bite to eat if you’re a professional services provider. Offer snacks if your customers have to wait to see you. Offering a good taste experience makes customers happy and makes them think more positively about your brand.
Sensory appeal - smell
Smell is the only sense which doesn’t go through the thalamus. It goes straight into the hippocampus, our brain’s memory system. It’s why smell can be such a powerful sensory experience.
That can have both pleasant and unpleasant uses in creative work.
We all know the “trick” of baking bread and making fresh coffee when trying to sell your house to give it a more homely sensory appeal.
But it’s also what drives obvious smell-based products like perfumes and alcoholic drinks. The smells they evoke trigger strong memories of previous pleasant experiences associated with those smells.
Look at the language these categories use to describe their smells. They’re always based on pleasant places and events, usually taken from nature. Flowery and oaky. Grassy and heathery. Citrusy and spicy. Even just the words alone trigger strong and appealing memories.
Compare that with when you want to put someone off something. This movie or that restaurant stinks. That lawyer reeked of arrogance. You could sense the stench of desperation when you walked into their office. Bad smells are nature’s way of warning us away from things that are unpleasant or even dangerous.
On that note, you may or may not know that the word “trump” in some parts of the world is an old-fashioned synonym for flatulence. Which may or may not have influenced the recent US presidential result if some took it as a warning signal of something unpleasant or even dangerous.
Conclusion - Making sense of sensory appeal in creative work
We should close with a more pleasant sensory appeal and not leave a lingering bad smell, so try to put thoughts of the orange-faced right-wing nut job to one side.
Instead, think about learning about sensory appeal as a way of doing customers a big favour.
By translating your product or service offer into something they can see, hear, touch, taste and / or smell, you tap into something they already do naturally anyway.
By making it more pleasant for them, you’ll get more attention, more interest and stick in their memory. Makes sense, right?
Check out our how to use emotions for more on this. Or get in touch if you need help making sense of the sensory appeal of your brand.
Photo credits
Woman sniffing flowers : Photo by Elly Johnson on Unsplash
Woman looking at phone in dark room : Photo by Chad Madden on Unsplash
Eye : Photo by Daniil Kuželev on Unsplash
Man in blue shirt writing : Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash
Dog ears : Photo by kyle smith on Unsplash
Hammer : Photo by Moritz Mentges on Unsplash
Distancing : Photo by Chris Greene on Unsplash
Woman writing on a Macbook : Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash
Food preparation : Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash
Coffee cups : Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Cafe : Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash
