Feel Brands

We coexist with a market that meets real and unreal needs, while at the same time transmitting values and inspiring desires. Brands are what make us feel. Authentic brands provide us with meaning and attitude, although those who contribute most to a brand are people when they use its product and establish it in reality, making it trustworthy and profitable.

There is a broad imaginarium, some brands emerge from a way of life itself (The North Face, Lacoste), others are geared towards connecting from a perception of beauty, design and a certain status (Apple, Loewe, Tesla), there are brands that transmit trends to us with their own gaze (Bimba y Lola, Camper); fast and affordable consumption is another of the signs of such times (Inditex, Uniqlo) and there are increasingly more proposals of smart and ethical living (Patagonia, Ecoalf, SKFK). Besides the functional benefits that meet needs, what truly seduces us are emotional and sensory intangibles, as well as unavoidable social, anthropological and cultural aspects.

In this age of innovation, pseudo-abundance and knowledge, we are increasingly sophisticated, and more selective. We not only need to consume products, but we also harbour values and we want to transmit them. The consumer society is evolving towards humanisation, valuing sustainability, culture, ethical transparency and accountability.

It is the consumers who hold sway, our habits have changed and they continue evolving. It is necessary to get close and listen to us, get to know us better, engage a conversation and surprise us, exceeding our expectations. For this reason the way of attracting us has changed, diversifying to become less intrusive and more coherent (emotional branding, sensory marketing, branded content, etc.) and new methods of better understanding our behaviour have emerged (neuromarketing, data science, AI). It is about humanising brands to bring them closer, and make them more attractive and useful for people's lives.

We need brands like they need us, but we are increasingly demanding and loyalty is fickle. New, highly interesting possibilities of expertise are beginning to open up in the field of contemporary neuroscience, although still at an interesting and incipient stage.

“There is no purchase button in the human brain” that enables absolute manipulation that requires us to buy, subjugating our willpower – that is not the question. It is undoubtedly good news and it is soundly stated by María López, CEO of BitBrain.

This is one of the marketing mantras: "85% of our purchasing decisions are made unmindfully, sparked by the emotions". At face value this would mean that whatever thrills us, we buy. It is perhaps not such a direct relationship, but what is clear is that in certain products categories, which go beyond merely functional aspects, if brands do not connect with our emotions they are not going to be among our selected options for a certain purchase.

Customer and brand experiences have become a central rationale of communication, in which perceptions must be coherent, transmitting values and positioning a mise-en-scène that glorifies the product in a brand environment that unfurls its attraction and meanings. The stimuli are directed to the senses like a vehicle going directly to the emotions. Stores become the physical space where all the elements come together to flood our perception. A technological layer also surrounds the experience

Andy Warhol was challenged for his boldness when inserting iconic elements of consumerism (Coke, Campbell) perverting the – until then – pure discourse of art. Now we are in the future where everything is consumption; a time when artistic elements become necessary as identifying traits, like cultural symbols for proposals that have to go beyond mere consumption.

Now everything is consumption; a time when artistic elements become necessary as identifying traits, like cultural symbols for proposals that have to go beyond mere consumption.

We pay attention to those who treat us as intelligent and learned beings, we also are hedonists. I wanted to highlight the revaluation of music and perfume in this contemporary setting as sophisticated and efficient tools that connect with our emotions, emotionally positioning each brand in its place. This is what we are passionately devoted to at Sensory Brands, innovating and transmitting emotions through the senses, enriching the consumption.