Digital Sensory Immersion
Your brand comms may look great, but are you engaging their other senses too?
In the screen age, sensory immersion is the ultimate comfort – and impactful use of sound, smell and touch stand out. Through experiences that feed more than the eyes, brands cross the ‘device divide’ and integrate further into consumer reality.
So what might they look like in action?
EVOCATIVE SCENT: Fragrance, more than any category, relies upon analogy and symbolism – but recent viral scents have gone beyond the verbal and visual to create vivid scent worlds. Take Dulce by Rosie Jane - a nostalgic vanilla perfume with accompanying 90s Spotify playlist.
ASMR INTIMACY: Indie beauty brand Kaja Beauty uses ASMR techniques (quiet taps, clicks etc) in its TikTok videos, rewarding viewers with a 360 experience of its products and a tingly feeling.
MINDFUL SOUNDS: From wellness tech brand Tersa’s immersive Sound Pod to the growing popularity of ‘listening bars’ everywhere from London to Tokyo, a consistent and distinctive audio strategy meets an underserved need for focus.
LUXURY VISUAL ‘FEEL’: Max Mara’s ‘Fluffy Residence’ is a furry interior celebrating contemporary icon the Teddy Coat - and the latest high-profile activation to harness hyper-tactility as proof of luxury quality. For consumers unable to visit the pop-up IRL, the familiarity of plush toy fabric evokes softness that can be ‘felt’ through digital images. It’s a light-hearted amplification of ‘cosy’ that bridges the luxury quality x digital divide, speaking to consumers that are looking for more than ‘smooth’ and ‘solid’.
HAPTIC TECH POSSIBILITY: Innovation in haptic technologies will integrate touch and gesture into digital interfaces, providing new opportunities for remote product ‘handling’ and experiences – what could that mean for your brand?
In a recent thought piece, B12 highlighted the opportunity for ‘quiet brands’ to stand out in a loud world – and sensory immersion does NOT mean doing everything at once.
On the contrary, making strategic and creative choices to dial up underserved forms of sensorial engagement through digital platforms may point the way towards doing fewer ‘eye candy’ comms - for a far bigger result.