How Brands Use Smell, Touch and Sound to Build Memorable Experiences: A Working Framework

Sensory marketing works because memory is built through the senses, not just through logos and taglines. Brands that deliberately engage smell, touch and sound alongside sight create experiences that stick in customers' memories and translate into measurable results. The clearest documented example: McDonald's scent-emitting billboards in the Netherlands produced a 14% sales increase at nearby restaurants. This article explains the psychology behind that effect, deconstructs two real campaigns, and lays out a step-by-step process for applying the same thinking to your own business.

Introduction: Beyond Sight and Sound

Most marketing budgets are spent on what customers see and hear. Sensory marketing argues that the remaining senses are an underused channel. As the neuroscientist and writer Matt Johnson puts it, the strongest brand experiences "aren't just seen; they're sensed and felt" — built from "scents, sounds, and textures that bypass the rational mind and embed themselves directly in memory."

Academic research gives this claim a foundation. The scholar Aradhna Krishna's work, cited in a paper on sensory branding published in the International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, defines sensory marketing as marketing that engages consumers' senses and affects their perception, judgment and behaviour, with multisensory stimuli leading to richer and more enduring consumer-brand relationships. The theory of embodied cognition complements this: cognitive processes are rooted in the body's physical interactions with the world, so what a customer smells or touches shapes what they think.

The Psychology of Sensory Engagement

Three mechanisms explain why sensory tactics outperform purely visual campaigns. The first is memory. Engaging multiple senses strengthens retention, making it easier for customers to remember and recognize a brand — the reason a retail fragrance paired with consistent visuals and music creates an experience customers remember and return to, according to marketing guidance from The Media Ant's Chetana HP.

The second is emotional connection. Because sensory stimuli operate largely below conscious, rational evaluation, they build bonds that feel personal rather than transactional. The third is perception itself: Krishna's research emphasizes that sensory input directly affects how consumers judge a brand and behave toward it. A scent is not decoration; it is an input into a decision.

Sensory Marketing Campaigns: A Comparative Analysis

Two documented campaigns show how different brands used the same sense — smell — toward very different goals. McDonald's, already globally recognized, used scent to drive immediate local sales. Billie, a smaller body care brand, used scent to build awareness for a new product. The comparison below aligns each tactic with its intended goal and measured impact.

The pattern is strategic, not incidental. McDonald's placed its scented billboards near its own restaurants so the sensory cue led directly to a purchase — the scent functioned as a call to action. Billie, lacking that global recognition, used scent as a curiosity device to introduce itself and a new product to consumers. Same sense, opposite objectives: one converted, one introduced.

A Strategic Framework for Sensory Marketing

The evidence supports a four-step process for any business starting a sensory strategy.

1. Define your core brand attributes. Identify the emotions and experiences you want customers to associate with your brand. Every sensory choice should serve those attributes, not exist for novelty.
2. Audit existing touchpoints. Map where customers currently encounter your brand — store, packaging, website, advertising — and identify which senses each touchpoint already engages and where enhancement is possible. The academic literature on sensory branding recommends this audit as the starting point, paired with a mapping process that aligns sensory inputs with brand values and user expectations.
3. Match the sense to the goal. Decide whether the objective is recall, emotional connection or immediate action. A scent tied to a nearby purchase opportunity drives sales; a scent tied to a distinctive brand cue builds awareness. Choose based on which outcome you need.
4. Measure the impact. McDonald's could tie its campaign to a 14% local sales lift and scent-recognition survey figures. Define your metric — sales, dwell time, recall — before launching.

Consistency matters throughout: a fragrance in a store, a visual identity and background music work as a holistic experience only when they reinforce the same brand attributes across channels.

Crafting Memorable Brand Journeys: Your Next Steps

Businesses should strategically integrate multi-sensory elements into their brand experience to enhance customer memory, foster emotional connections and influence perception, following the structured framework above. Start small: audit your touchpoints, pick one sense-aligned tactic tied to a specific business goal, and measure it. The measurable indicators to watch are increased customer engagement metrics — dwell time, repeat visits — and positive brand sentiment in customer feedback, alongside campaign-specific numbers like the sales lift McDonald's tracked. A tactic that cannot be tied to one of those indicators is decoration, not strategy.

Sources

• Sensory Marketing: 3 Trends Driving the Next Era of Brand Engagement — Futurecommerce
• The Psychology Behind Multi-Sensory Marketing and its Impact on Brand Loyalty — Neuroscience Of
• IJTSRD