Consumer behavior has undergone a dramatic shift in the age of one-click shopping, forcing brick-and-mortar businesses to get creative in competing for consumer attention.
The result is an increasing focus on the customer experience, which savvy retailers can use to differentiate themselves from their digital competition – capitalizing on social and interactive engagement that can’t be reproduced online.
Forbes contributor Megan Kelleher, head of field marketing for Amplience, writes in a January 2018 Forbes column that the key to capturing consumers attention lies in creating an experience that moves seamlessly between online and off.
Online shopping may be convenient, but the wealth of digital options can drive demand for offline experiences. As an example, she cites the practice of “showrooming” in which consumers browse online for the best prices while visiting a brick-and-mortar store.
Meanwhile, some online retailers have begun adding physical locations to enhance the shopping experience for their customers. Popular online designer clothes rental service Rent The Runway opened showrooms around the country for their customers to try on their designer brands and work with a personal stylist. Intel and Adidas partnered to create a Virtual Footwear Wall, an augmented reality (AR) display that allowed shoppers to spin, zoom in on, and customize thousands of pairs of shoes before trying them on.
Create Customer Experiences with Multisensory Special Effects
Multisensory marketing is uniquely suited to the task of creating a memorable customer experience and provoking engagement that breaks through the distractions. As marketing expert and author Martin Lindstrom describes in “Brand Sense,” the senses are a powerful link to memory and emotions.
By invoking senses that customers don’t use while shopping online, like touch and smell, the retailers can enhance customer experience to great advantage.
Promotions That Demand a Touch
Packaging and promotions that include multisensory special effects are a proven method of engaging consumers’ interest, getting them to look, touch, smell – and buy. When a big-box retailer wanted to create an interactive display in its children’s department recently, H&H helped create a “mood ring effect” display that children could touch and cover with color-changing handprints.
At H&H, we have deep expertise in creating multisensory special effects for packaging and promotions. An in-house R&D department gives us the ability to create custom effects, colors, textures and scents that deliver maximum consumer engagement. Our SnapShot effect leverages digital and physical effects to create “secret” messaging that is revealed by the flash on a cell phone camera. Other techniques use water, light and heat-sensitive inks to reveal a hidden message or image. (See water reveal promotion pictured above.) We have special effects for reproducing the feel of a football or a baby blanket, the smell of money or freshly-baked cookies.
Call us to learn more about what multisensory special effects printing can do for your next project.
