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Intoxication of the senses

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You enter a room. It is brightly-lit, inviting and the temperature is just right. At the same time, a sweet, fresh fragrance swirls around your nose, bringing back pleasant memories of past holidays. You readily let yourself slump into a soft armchair and try out the sweets in the bowl on the table. Lemon? What a coincidence – your favourite flavour. Welcome to the world of sensory marketing! Whether feeling, seeing, smelling, tasting or hearing – everything we perceive, whether consciously or unconsciously, impacts our behaviour, our reactions and our emotions. 'Sensory Marketing' makes use of this mechanism by stimulating the senses in a targeted way – for example through the deliberate use of fragrances and sounds – to increase the willingness to buy, to control the perception of brands, to induce a sense of wellbeing or make a positive impression.
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Follow your nose

A bird's-eye view of a bathtub, filled with water, blossoms and lemon slices.

Many hotels already deploy this promising strategy by for example using so-called 'signature scents': Fragrances purposely designed for an individual hotel to help shape its character. Whether in the lobby, the rooms or the spa – the atomized fragrance has a direct effect on guest and serves to prompt recognition. Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts, too, have created their very own composition in collaboration with the artist and olfactory researcher Sissel Tolaas. This scent envelops guests in a mist of gentian, light woods, alpine flowers and red berries – reflecting the company's colour. The Ritz Carlton in Tokyo enthrals its guests with its own inimitable scent: Green lemon. This signature scent represents a refined pyramid of fragrances with notes of green lemon, bergamot, thyme and eucalyptus.

Pricking your ears

A person wearing a leather jacket and holding a guitar.

Music is balm for the soul. As a result, relaxing piped music in the lobby or a pleasant backdrop of sound while dining are common ways of putting guests at ease and lifting spirits. The Hard Rock Hotels have perfected this approach. With a concept called 'The Sound of your Stay', they create musical memories. Guests have access to curated Spotify playlists, can put on vinyl records in their room or can don over-ear headphones and drown in their favourite music. And if you can't live without a guitar jam session during your stay, you can reserve a Fender of your choice and have it delivered to your room – for a musical experience of the special kind.

A matter of taste

A cookie, broken into two pieces, lying on dark wood.

When it comes to inducing customer loyalty through the sense of taste, the Double Tree by Hilton takes some beating. Its 'signature cookies' are handed out to all guests on arrival to sweeten the otherwise inconvenient check-in process. Chocolate is known to release a sense of happiness and an oven-fresh chocolate chip cookie lets that feel-good sensation flood in – a positive experience which lingers on. And as the warm cookies rapidly grow in popularity, this famous nibble now has its own website so that you can enjoy it with friends and family. And, what's more, the hotel published its heavily guarded recipe during the recent Covid lockdown to allow its guests to stay close, even in times of absence. What a stroke of genius!

This article is part of our customer magazine "Welcome & Stay". Feel free to download the digital version of the magazine. 

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  1. 1.
    Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts https://www.ci-portal.de/un-wind-with-the-wind-ein-spezieller-duft-fur-swisshotel/
  2. 2.
    Ritz Carlton in Tokyo https://www.scentcompany.it/en/news/ritz-carlton-tokyo-scent-marketing/ https://www.air-aroma.com/blog/ritz-carlton-signature-scent-at-newly-opened-resort-in-japan/
  3. 3.
    Hard Rock Hotels https://www.hardrockhotels.com/ibiza/de/sound-of-your-stay.aspx
  4. 4.
    Double Tree by Hilton https://www.hilton.com/en/doubletree/ https://stories.hilton.com/food-beverage/static-doubletree-reveals-cookie-recipe https://www.doubletreecookies.com