BRAND sense: Sensory Secrets Behind the Stuff We Buy [ハードカバー]

I read this in one shot on a 6.5 hour flight to Kauai against monster headwinds. Since then I have picked it up and read sections and tried to make changes in my company based on what I learned. Thanks to Lindstrom's book, I can certainly tell you I am on a brand journey.

I am sure every reviewer will mention Singapore Airlines. We were holding a conference and I wanted to create that distinct SANS Institute smell. So I bought five aromatic dispensers and test scents with names like "Ocean Feeling". I had people stationed to observe the customers and make note of anything they said about smell. Zero results. Why? The biggest reason is probably the volume of air in a modern conference center is several orders of magnitude greater than a jet.

We are working on the tips the author gives for music, here I am convinced he is right, I cannot listen to Rhapsody in Blue without thinking about United Airlines.

Without this book, I would have thought brand was a logo and picking some colors and maybe a jingle. My eyes are opened, and at this point I know it will be a long journey, but I am sure I will refer to the book again and again. Highly recommended for any business owner or organizational executive.

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.

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 that effective follow-through has been accomplished. Obviously, it would be foolish to attempt to implement all of Lindstrom's suggestions. It remains for each reader to determine what is most appropriate to her or his organization's immediate and imminent needs. However, whether committing to Lindstrom's methodology or to any other, it is important to understand and - yes--appreciate the barriers to change initiatives when introducing any methodology which challenges, as James O'Toole so aptly characterizes them, "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."