• Listening to perfume
• Interview:
  Klaus Doldinger
• Raiders of lost flavors
• The palate has ears
• The scent of an evening
• From closing doors and fizzing bottles
• Tasting sound

From closing doors and fizzing bottles

What does a brand sound like? How does it smell and taste? Multisensory design has the answer. It turns brand identity into an experience and gives it the breath of life.

It's like a scene from a children's storybook. The grandmother stretches out her arms, giving her grandson a whiff of the promise of a batch of cookies hidden within the rustling baking parchment lining the colorful cookie tin she is holding. The slightly hollow thump of the cookie tin being opened is something he will never forget. Nor is the sweet smell of the cookies, their crumbly texture nor their heavenly taste. We carry these types of experiences with us for the rest of our lives. Just a sound or a scent can trigger a memory of how a fabric feels. But our senses don't just trigger memories. They are also quick to register a pleasant association that affects the here and now. Whether it's a cookie jar or a luxury sedan, manufacturers have long known that there is more to brand positioning than functionality and visual appeal. To distinguish themselves from the competition, brand-name products have to smell, taste and feel good if they are going to resonate with customers. Multisensory product design doesn't just address the external characteristics of an object. It also manipulates deeper underlying perceptions and transmits subliminal messages that trigger the emotions.

The customer wants a sensory experience that reflects the type of car he drives.

Hendrik N.J. Schifferstein and Paul Hekkert are researchers at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The two young professors collaborated on the book Product Experience. Says Schifferstein, "Even though the interaction between the consumer and product clearly depends on the product, an emotional aspect also exists." Schifferstein defines product experience as a complex structure founded on sensory and motor perception, experience, and emotion. One of the researchers' findings is that consumers are enticed into buying a product before they have actually laid hands on it – simply by their perception of a sensory experience. A television commercial that shows someone biting into a cookie, which is then followed by a loud crunch, conveys the message that a crunch means crispiness. In the end, the sound should reveal something to the customer. Anyone who buys a chocolate ice cream bar anticipates that first delicate cracking of the chocolate shell. Advertising has gone to great lengths to communicate this sound so that, when we do hear it, our mouths begin to water.

Someone looking to buy a car may imagine the smell of its leather interior or the sound of the engine. This is why Mercedes-Benz set up its own acoustic laboratory at the end of the 1990s. The lab's first task was to make the car quieter. However, as they quickly realized, the melody of a car is more than just its exhaust and engine; it is the combination of these sounds that influences brand perception. For instance, the sound of a Mercedes-Benz CLS at a constant speed should be unobtrusive: when accelerating, it should be powerful. A third of all automobile buyers reported being able to identify the make of a car by the sound of the door being shut. At Porsche, dozens of engineers work together in a sound studio to find the perfect brand-specific sound. It is estimated that the Swabians spend more than €20 million to design the sound of each and every new model. By the time an automobile manufacturer branches out into researching all the other senses, the team may have grown to more than 100 engineers, chemists, physicists, and neuropsychologists. No one argues that sight is the fastest way to assimilate the bulk of information. It also has the greatest impact on previous experience. Even so, marketing studies have shown that adding other senses more than triples product association. Touch and smell were identified as being the "most emotional" senses. While Audi's "nose team" works on keeping the smell as neutral as possible, other manufacturers come up with a signature scent.

An extremely quiet vacuum cleaner is generally regarded as having no oomph.

Genau wie das Riechen greift auch der Hörsinn auf evolutionär sehr alte Hirnregionen zu. Diese Direktverbindung in die Steinzeit bestätigt Professor Eckart Altenmüller, Neurologe und Musiker an der Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover: "Man braucht 300 Millisekunden, um die Emotion in der Sprache seines Gegenübers zu identifizieren, und nur 100 Millisekunden, um bei einem Geigenton zu erkennen, ob er fröhlich, traurig oder zornig ist." Multisensorische Designer müssen das Spiel mit den Wechselwirkungen zwischen den Sinnen beherrschen. So transportieren Parfumhersteller ihre Produktbotschaft fast nie über den Duft, sondern über den Umweg der Assoziation. Statt des Duftes nutzen sie Form und Farbe. Der Grund: Menschen fällt es schwer, Düfte in Worte zu fassen. Also platzieren die Hersteller ihre Markenbotschaft über den Flakon, die Flüssigkeit und die Verpackung. Multisensorisch gestaltete Produkthüllen verstärken die Vorgefühle des Käufers. Dieser soll die Marke, die er erwirbt, nicht nur sehen, sondern auch hören, riechen und ertasten. So hat der italienische Haushaltswarenhersteller Alessi eine Plätzchenschachtel mit abgerundeten Kanten gestaltet. "Mary Biscuit" fühlt sich gut an, ist mit Vanillearoma beduftet und erzeugt beim Open einen weicheren Klang. "Doch neben der Behaglichkeit eines Geräuschs kommt es auf den Kontext an, in dem man hört." Dr. Janina Fels, Oberingenieurin am Institut für Technische Akustik der RWTH Aachen, nennt ein Beispiel: Meeresrauschen am Strand habe eine beruhigende Wirkung – dasselbe Geräusch in derselben Lautstärke würde in einem Wohnzimmer jedoch nur noch als Lärm wahrgenommen. "Oder stellen Sie sich einen geräuschlosen Staubsauger vor, niemand würde ihm eine zufriedenstellende Leistung zutrauen." Deshalb optimieren Akustiker Material, Volumen, Form und Schallübertragungswege von Produkten, bis diese die emotionalen Erwartungen der Nutzer treffen.

Added value through tactile stimuli

Increasingly, the sense of touch is also becoming a focus of multisensory designers. Even though touch may rank last among the senses as far as multisensory stimuli is concerned, the skin is, and remains, our largest organ. For certain products, the sense of touch can play a decisive role. For half of all car buyers, the feel of the steering wheel and gearshift is a deciding factor in whether or not they buy a car. And for more than a third of all mobile phone buyers, the feel is more important than its looks. Which is why quality manufacturers such as Sennheiser use only the finest materials. Plastics from the aviation and aerospace industries, and microfiber textile not only make the HD800 headphones look good – they convey a very unique brand feeling. It's a little bit like grandma's cookie jar, only better. And better throughout.

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