This is what sensory branding can do for your business

To impart a distinctively “Asian” appeal to its brand and support its dynamic, upmarket look and feel, UOB Privilege Reserve at Marina Bay Sands retail mall ‘The Shoppes’ recently embarked on a bold foray into what has come to be known as “sensory branding”.

Designed like a First Class Lounge on the upper deck of a Boeing Dream Liner in the year 2030, one could claim that UOB at MBS is the company’s first ever ‘concept project’ in what is usually regarded as a restrained and conservative industry.

The bank branch brought in environmental brand strategies to help impart a unique set of sensory touch points to the branch’s environment. The company decided upon an integrated approach, incorporating both fragrance and also music styling, which would help create a stylish statement with an understatement of elegance and quiet finesse.

For their fragrance, they opted for a scent inspired by the essence of “Bergamot” and a playlist of ambient music presenting a fusion of East and West. In this way, environmental styling transcends customers’ merely financial needs and extends into various facets of their ‘privilege banking lifestyle’”.

For more than a decade now, sensory branding involving fragrance, sound and ambient lighting have been making our consumer, retail and hospitality environments more attractive to spend time in. These sensory solutions have been adopted by numerous local and regional businesses, notably hotels, banks and retailers seeking to increase customer interaction through experiential marketing, and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

There is a direct correlation between customers time spent in a store and a store’s sales, so what stores want to do is to increase the time customers spent in their store by creating the right mood and environment. Different genres of music for example can create different experiences for customers.

Fast tempo ambient music, labeled in the business ‘high arousal’ music will excite and energise a customer and this might be appropriate for electrical retail outlets like Courts for example.

At the other extreme, more soothing and relaxed low-tempo music is used when a brand wants customers to slow down and spend more time relaxing in the environment. Such a strategy would get customers more in the mood for trying out sofas in a furniture store for instance, or impulse grocery shopping in a supermarket!

You choose the right kind of ambience for the particular kind of customer and the type of products or services you are offering. And getting the balance right is not only an art form, it’s also a real science.

Sensory branding often involves the input of top fragrance houses from around the world which very often custom craft a particular client’s ambient aroma from scratch, so that the scent remains unique to their brand.

One of the fragrance houses that we work with, for instance, is one of the top three perfumeries in the world, having created perfumes for Anna Sui, Gucci, Escada and Dunhill. Clients who do not go to the lengths of creating a unique ‘signature fragrance’ can also choose from a range of many different off the shelf scents and aromas from a wide olfactory repertoire.

The fragrance is diffused, by a proprietary portable in-situ machine, through the client’s air conditioning ducting system as a dry vapor which has a uniform spread and has definite safety advantages over scent burners with dangerous naked candles.

Another client in the banking arena, Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, opted for a specially created fragrance to help reposition their new showcase Lan Kwai Fong branch. The branch’s captivating aroma can be described as an envelopment of oriental, citrus, woody and spicy notes, with softly blended white musk.

The choice was based upon the bank brand’s heritage originating from Africa and India with branches having a desired upmarket, high quality, warm, customer-focused and comfortable feel.

Also embracing the strategy are the new generation of boutique and five star luxury hotels, who have become early adopters of these brand atmospherics practices. In Singapore, we have recently advised both Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and Equarius Hotel at Resorts World Sentosa.

At MBS, guests are offered a choice of 3 signature fragrances for their suite – masculine, feminine and neutral and portable scent machines are used by housekeeping to neutralize tobacco smells and other foul
odours.

Equarius Hotel on Sentosa, meanwhile, required a signature fragrance reminiscent of rainforest infused with floral and green top and mid notes, perfectly balanced with woody lower notes to compliment the design and bring out the elements of the resort’s lush tropical greenery.

Singapore’s restaurant brands and fitness centres are also prime candidates for this kind of atmospherics treatment. Banyan Tree Fitness Club for example and the Brozeit chain of restaurants are good examples of forward thinking businesses keen to embrace the new 360 degree branding protocols of sound, smell and ambience.

Ambient music selected for customers is chosen to harmonise and compliment different public areas, whilst reflecting a company’s brand’s tone and feel. Music releases a chemical in the brain (dopamine) that has a role in setting good moods and also how we feel as individuals.

Dopamine is also associated with less tangible stimuli – such as being in love. So sensory manipulation basically it’s all about making customers ‘fall in love with your brand!’ and doing so in a very benign yet scientific way through behavioural and sensory psychology.”

Unsurprisingly, with such powerful ‘sensory sorcery’ which is able to stimulate customers into having an enduring relationship with a brand, companies are lining up to deploy these stealth methods of creating brand loyalty and the repeat business it brings.

We for example count as our current clients such iconic brands as Marina Bay Sands hotel, Equarius Hotel at Resorts World Sentosa, Straits Bullion, Banyan Tree Fitness Club, Brozeit, Level 33, CUT steak restaurant and Moon Hotel. Past clients have included Courts, Mercedes-Benz, Naumi Hotel and numerous others, including
leading Singapore based banks.

Brands find it increasingly difficult to differentiate and connect with their target market. With 83% of marketing budgets spent on commercial communication that appeals to one sense - our eyes, yet 75% of our decisions are based upon what we smell and there’s a 65% chance of a mood change when exposed to positive music.

Bland service centres, uninspiring bank branches, plain vanilla retailer outlets, traditional passive merchandising displays, jazzy colour palettes, bright lights and one-off price promotions just aren’t ringing the cash registers like they used to.

As humans, we are affected by the appeal of our surroundings, which tend to affect our behaviour. So, for example, a wine shop was comparing the effect of playing top 40's music versus classical and jazz, and they actually found that the volume of sales didn't increase between the two, but they did find that when people listen to classical music they tend to select more expensive wines.

If we look at the application of fragrance, Nike once conducted a study where they have two identical sets of trainers, one pair was located in a room that had been lightly fragranced, and the other room had not.

They would send consumers in to look at each of those two pairs of trainers and when they came out they asked them which trainers they had a preference for. It was found that the consumers actually preferred the trainers from the scented room.

They were even prepared to spend 10 to 15 to 20 dollars more as compared to trainers in the un-fragranced room. This is a global trend which all started in the hospitality industry. Seven years ago, Westin, part of the Starwood Group, started diffusing a signature fragrance in all of their hotel lobbies and they coupled that by standardizing the music in all the lobbies too, so whenever you went from a Westin property anywhere in the world you actually have
a consistent ‘brand experience’.

So, this is a branding tactic that is already very much in use throughout the world, but how is it being used in Asia? What we're finding in Asia is that brands want to express more of their Asian brand elements, as we’ve seen with clients like Standard Chartered in Lan Kwai Fong, or another prominent bank based in Singapore, who went for a ginger flower fragrance with notes of citrus, jasmine, violet and rose with vanilla bottom notes.

The installation of sensory branding can be scientifically measured to verify that the system meets the original expectations of the brand steward. Equal Strategy partners with the sensory research department at Nanyang Technology University, who can also be engaged by clients to conduct research into return on investment.

Music and scent should ideally synergise beautifully to create a 360 degree sensory environment in which the brand can live, breathe and function as a living, organic entity in its own right.

It’s not just about pumping sound or aromas into spaces; what we essentially do is give a living spirit to your brand through these techniques!