The Aromatic Radio advertisement. See how Dunkin Donuts increased sales of coffee in their outlets through multi-sensory marketing.

Have you ever heard about sensory marketing? Sensory marketing is a method of appealing to your audience’s five senses. It emphasizes the creation of content that appeals to the senses of sight, touch, sound, smell, and taste. Brands may generate stronger links with consumers’ emotions and memories by appealing to several senses through sensory marketing.

Dunkin’ Donuts is one of many well-known international businesses competing for the time, attention, and money of city dwellers. However, the brand’s business in South Korea has proven difficult. Seoul is known as the “The City of Coffee” Dunkin’ Donuts needed to grab people’s attention and refocus their attention away from the doughnuts they were selling and toward the famous beverage in order to stay competitive.

The brand hired a marketing agency to tackle Seoul’s challenging market. Because most individuals take public transportation to work, the company decided to target workers during their early morning coffee habit. Everything revolved around the planning of people’s career paths. To entice customers into their store, they exploited three senses carefully positioned in their path: sound, smell, and sight.

They made a radio commercial that featured the Dunkin’ Donuts jingle and short dialogue. Next, they designed an automated aroma dispenser and placed it in buses. The dispenser released the aroma of the coffee every time the ad appeared on the radio. Several buses approaching the bus stop near the Dunkin’ Donuts store were equipped with such dispensers.

Lastly when they got off the buses, a visual advertisement at the bus stop directed them to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts. People were literally being led into the store by them. They were well aware that smell is a potent human sense that may elicit desires and needs. Furthermore, it rewrites the brand’s impression memory.

This campaign led to a huge success. The creative combination of multisensory marketing and the calculated effort worked. During the campaign, the ad was seen by over 350,00 people. Visitors at Dunkin Donuts increased by 16%, while sales at stores along the bus routes increased by 29%. This campaign won the Cannes Award for creativity in 2012, because it is a perfect illustration of how behavioural science can be applied to grasp consumer psychology.