Brand Sense: Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy

As Philip Kotler explains in an especially perceptive Foreword, "distinctive brands...have to be powered up to deliver a full sensory experience. It is not enough to present a product or service visually in an ad...The combination of visual and audio stimuli delivers a 2 + 2 = 5 impact. It pays even more to trigger other sensory channels - taste, touch, smell - to enhance the total impact. This is Martin Lindstrom's basis message, and he illustrates it beautifully through numerous cases with compelling arguments." Bernd Schmitt is among others who make precisely the same point. In Experiential Marketing (1997), for example, he and Alex Simonson assert that "most of marketing is limited because of its focus on features and benefits." They then presented what they characterized as "a framework" for managing those experiences. In Experiential Marketing (1999), Schmitt provides a much more detailed exposition of the limitations of traditional features-and-benefits marketing. Moreover, he moves beyond the sensory "framework" into several new dimensions, introducing what he calls "a new model" which will enable marketers to manage "all types of experiences, integrating them into holistic experiences" while "addressing key structural, strategic, and organizational challenges." In Brand Sense, Lindstrom provides a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective methodology by which to plan, implement, and then sustain effective sensory marketing. As he correctly points out, approaches to marketing have changed significantly in recent years. In the 1950s, branding belonged to the unique selling proposition (USP); by the 1960s, a focus on the emotional selling proposition (ESP) emerged; then in the 1980s, many brand managers adopted the organizational selling proposition (OSP); by the 1990s, "brands had gained enormous strength bin their own right, and the Brand Selling Proposition (BSP) took over." Inevitably, it now seems, the me selling proposition (MSP) emerged. What's next? Again I quote Lindstrom: "There's every indication that branding will move beyond the MSP, into an even more sophisticated realm - reflecting a brave new world where the customer desperately needs something to believe in - and where brands very well might provide the answer. I call this realm HSP - the Holistic Selling proposition." With meticulous care, Lindstrom explains how and why the methodology he recommends will enable all organizations (regardless of size or nature) to drive sales and profits with a commitment to the HSP. To his credit, he devotes far more attention to the "how" and "why" than to the "what," although he duly acknowledges the importance of creating or increasing demand for a worthy product or service. Readers will especially appreciate Lindstrom's provision of a set of "Action Points" at the conclusion of most chapters. These will suggest how to apply the material to which they refer, and, will facilitate and expedite a periodic review later to ensure th

This book is great in a way that it stimulates our thinking and looks at the branding concepts in a brand new way. It also encourages curiosity and creativity in this professional filed. A Must-Read!

Martin Lindstrom's Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands Through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight And Sound provides an unusual treatise based on Millward Brown's study linking branding and sensory awareness. 'Sensory branding' is a relatively new concept: Brand Sense takes the next step from study results to outline a six-step program for bringing brand building into modern times. Examples cover products and retail marketing alike, demonstrating the basics of establishing an appealing marketing approach based on more than sight and sound alone.

Now and then we need a nudge in our thinking. BRAND sense will do just that. Rethink and reframe our traditional ways of branding. In a fast-paced world where we're bombarded with slogans, signs, messages, and catchy tunes, Lindstrom's book carefully guides brands in reframing the way they will think about and present their brand. It's an extraordinary hypothesis. It is bound to challenge every marketeer to reasses, reconfigure and reframe their brand in a way that will connect more deeply and more emotionally with the consumer.

Continuing from where he left off with BRAND child, Martin Lindstrom, once again, has made me sit up and take notice of an innovative approach to contemporary marketing. BRAND sense makes perfect sense and that's what makes it so disarmingly good. It's not that that the concepts and outcomes being postured are revolutionary, because in truth they are not. However, Lindstrom puts these notions across with such clarity that it's like a veil being lifted, and the understanding that had always been there, is now revealed. Think about it. Why should marketers rely only on sight and sound to build brand presence, when all the other senses are equally as receptive to a savvy marketer's ability to touch its consumer base? For me, the anecodtal evidence being offered in this book, backed by credible qualitative research, points with absolute certainty to a marketing future unrecognizable from where we are currently. Which makes the future for brand builders that much more exciting. I loved this book for its simple human truths. Lindstrom is a past master when it comes to understanding the subtelties of consumerism, again evident in this sequel to BRAND child. I recommend it to anyone wishing to be on the cutting edge of brand knowledge and brand development.