Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Harness The Power Of Sensation Transference To Boost Your Brand
Did you know that Marlboro was originally designed as a lady’s brand of cigarettes? Or that margarine is naturally white in colour? These two rather random pieces of information are important because one of the pioneers of marketing, Louis Cheskin, transformed these two products to achieve a huge boom in business for the companies behind them.
Louis Cheskin, a marketing pioneer of the early 20th century, developed the theory of Sensation Transference essentially that consumers didn’t just consume a product, but the totality of the product, including the packaging. Through this phenomenon, consumers would transfer the emotions generated by product packaging to the product itself, literally ‘tasting’ a product the instant they saw it.
In the case of margarine, Cheskin suggested that it be artificially coloured yellow to look more like butter and be wrapped in foil (it was typically wrapped in waxed paper) to give the impression of quality. The tactic succeeded and margarine sales boomed. He also suggested that Marlboro be re-positioned to target men (there were more male smokers at the time) and he created concept of the ‘Marlboro Man’ to achieve this (very successfully).
Cheskin was able to develop the theory of sensation transference because he believed in observing consumers, rather than just relying on typical market research where consumers would be asked a series of questions. He believed consumers’ actions spoke much louder than their words. Looking at his track record, he was right.
In the modern world of internet marketing, it’s easier than ever before to observe what our consumers are doing, and to test the impact of changes to the look and feel of our websites and online advertising (our packaging), but the design of a new website still seems to be done in a rather un-informed way. Most online business just want a website that looks professional and clean, but this isn’t enough, a consideration also needs to be made as to how the specifics of colour, design, font style impact the emotional reaction users have to our online ‘packaging’.
In one experiment, Cheskin sent out 3 identical deodorant formulations in different types of packaging to a group of consumers for testing. The consumers were asked to note their impressions of these 3 ‘different’ types of deodorant….the results were startling. Consumers indicated a clear preference for one of the deodorants, with complaints one of the deodorants (with very distressing packaging) caused skin rashes and trips to the doctor by its users (remember, it’s the exact same formula as the other deodorants).
How can we take advantage of this with our websites? The answer is very straight forward. We need to take testing more seriously. If we’re going to launch a new website, why not sample multiple versions of the homepage to see which colour/design/typography combination generates the best results. Cheskin worked with the famous cookery brand Betty Croker and encouraged them to add a spoon to their logo, this lead to a 200% increase in sales. We can also run radically different types of online ads to squeeze the most out of their performance. Also if we’re embarking on a re-brand, asides the new look and feel being slick and cool, what does it represent emotionally? What do the colours we use mean? What is the impact on our sales?
Without a serious time and budget consideration for testing website and online advertising design, brands could be forgoing potential huge increases in business.
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