Transforming the Customer Experience through Sensory Marketing
Academic Area: Marketing
Embedded Files
I. About Transforming the Customer Experience through Sensory Marketing
See the impact of your decisions, and changes you make, on consumer behavior in a nearly real situation.
The objective of this material is to highlight a few basic principles about the psychology of sensation and perception, and how this affects marketing and consumer behavior.
To help participants understand these concepts in a very practical and visual way, they will support a character named Maria. She is a budding entrepreneur and wants to open a new café in Madrid. The establishment will sell bread, sandwiches, pastries, cakes, and beverages – both to go and to enjoy in the spacious seating area.
Maria is hiring the students as an expert in these psychological principles to help her make the right decisions according to what she wants her customers' experience to be like.
II. How does this VR material enhance learning?
Participants get to experience first hand how different sensory triggers can affect and effect their experience – both in predictable and in unexpected ways!
Students are presented with a skeleton image of the café and will need to make decisions about the remaining issues. The decision points will be positioned in order to introduce the relevant theory of perception and sensation, and are aimed to highlight its importance in marketing from the Consumer Behavior perspective.
The virtual environment immediately implements and displays the results of the decisions. Students will be able to appreciate the difference between one decision and another by putting themselves in a nearly real situation.
Students will also receive instant feedback on their decision, providing additional, reserach-driven insights into the psychology of sensory marketing. For example, a question might ask about the best color for the walls to generate a particular ‘look and feel’. The feedback will discuss how specific colors affect us both physiologically and psychologically and what these effects are and the limitations of these claims. Or a question may ask about the format of the menu for increasing sales and will discuss the nature of eye movements when scanning a visual space and the implications of this for reducing overlooked items on the menu.
III. How it works
The Sensory Marketing VR material can be integrated in a class discussion or can be used as a stand-alone simulator.
Integrated into class discussion - The teaching note helps you to develop key learning points, to formalize the in-situ learning from the case and to extract key learning themes. You can also encourage broader applications, e.g., to e-marketing, product and logo design, or even more broadly, to interface design, or architecture and design domains.
A stand-alone simulator - Students will learn about the types of sensory inputs that influence consumer behavior, the different ways in which consumer behavior can be changed through sensory inputs and should be able to identify some universals about perception. The overarching goal is to arm students with some basic knowledge and research on consumer perception that will allow them to be more careful and thoughtful consumers and developers of sensory marketing strategies in the future.
Target Audience - This VR learning material could be used as a compliment or supplement to instruction in a variety of programs and courses. Beyond its clear applications for programs studying human behavior (BBSS), it could be used in both undergraduate and graduate programs of business (BBA, MIM or MBA); marketing and customer experience masters (MRCB and MCXI); and even in architecture and design programs (e.g., Bachelors in Design, Masters in Strategic Design of Spaces).
This case has been developed by IE Publishing. If you are interested in using it with your students please contact iepublishing@ie.edu
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