How You Use All 5 Senses To Decide What To Buy

February 22, 2010

Interview with Martin Lindstrom, author of the book Brand Sense: Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy

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Mike Carruthers:
You might think that your sense of sight is what you use most often to decide what products to buy, but it’s not.

Martin Lindstrom:
In order of ranking across every product category the most powerful sense we have is the sense of sound, followed by the sense of smell, and then followed by the sense of sight.
 

Martin Lindstrom, author of the book Brand Sense, says a lot of companies are appealing to our other senses in ways you may not realize.

The smell of a new car is artificially manufactured and sprayed into the car before it leaves the factory. Or even the sound of the closing car door (opening and closing) is in some cars artificial. So literally you have in Germany at Mercedes Benz 12 engineers working on the sound of an opening and closing door.

Some retailers play music in their stores, which research shows, encourages you to buy more stuff.

Or even in restaurant chains now they are playing certain music, which makes you eat more. Or even casinos in Las Vegas which are now playing the sound of coins falling down into the trays and it makes people gamble 49% more, so it happens everywhere.

You can debate the ethics of this kind of manipulation but Martin says, as consumers we don’t seem to mind a little of it.

I’d rather go into a retail store which is essentially appealing and where it’s joyful to work there or to go into a Russian store (which I’ve been to as well) where it’s very, very painful to shop. As long as you as the consumer are aware that they are doing whatever they can to persuade you.
 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here