Get the flavour of the creative right and ‘feel the quality’, says Simon Harrop (pictured below).

Eight out of ten product launches now fail. It’s a staggering statistic when you consider all the millions being spent on launches, advertising, point-of-sale, direct marketing and whatever other tool is plucked out of the marketing kit bag to help get the public buying. Let’s be honest, the majority of marketing activity simply doesn’t work.

Yet each year, traditional forms of marketing become less and less effective.

For example, in 1965, more than 33 per cent of US consumers could recall specific TV ads, but by 1990 that figure had fallen to only eight per cent. And today? Well, my guess is that less than five per cent of the television-watching public will recall an advert.

How is this failure possible in our current age of widespread marketing expertise? Haven’t we had centuries of selling to get this right? Aren’t there now more people involved in marketing and branding than at any other time in history?

Particularly when it comes to direct marketing, one of the oldest forms of marketing, shouldn’t we be getting better rather than worse at marketing?

Cynical consumers
Maybe one reason is the rise of cynical, media-aware consumers who have now created an ‘anti-marketing shell’ for their non-conscious. But ultimately, this theory ignores the fact that some marketing DOES work when product launches are successful.

At Brand Sense, we believe  the most compelling rationale for the failure of marketers to launch new products is that the launch activity fails to appeal to all five of our senses (touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing).

We call the ability to achieve this, ‘sensory marketing’. It shouldn’t be a radical concept . . . but it is. This is because marketers have got stuck in a mindset that marketing activity only needs to appeal to consumers’ audio and visual senses. The facts back this up: 83 per cent of all brand communication is to the eyes alone. So, we have been seduced by print and are going the same way with the Internet. Touch, taste and smell have been forgotten.

But, we know we are missing something here, don’t we? All we need to do is consider the ancient saying: ‘Feel the quality.’

How did we forget such a fundamental concept when it comes to marketing? One explanation is that marketers of yesteryear may not have set out with a deliberate strategy of appealing to consumers through all five senses, but by using common sense and a belief in quality, they achieved it – the past was a golden age of sonic triggers, product smells, tastings and distinctive touch experiences.

Maybe it was because marketing directors used to have more clout in the board room than their modern counterparts. The power that the marketing director once exerted over the look, feel, smell, sound and taste of a product, and the environment in which it is sold, has mostly been lost to other directors around the board room . . . especially the penny-pinching accountants who are more interested in short term profits by cutting quality and reducing marketing spend.

Emotional connection
So, with a reduced budget and too many cooks in the board room, marketers are left serving up shiny brochures and slick ads, but little else. Thus, there is an increasing disconnect between the visual and audio advertising that urges consumers to embrace the lifestyle promise of the brand and the reality of what it takes to emotionally connect with a consumer.

A good example is Virgin’s Pendalino trains. They look great and have been marketed as fast and futuristic. However their sensory appeal, sadly, stops there. There is less head space than previous trains and the chairs are closer together, all of which creates a negative sensory feeling. The materials used in the chairs and interiors are poor and, more often than not, are made of light plastics which feel cheap and insubstantial. The toilets (the so-called Super Loos) are smelly. The continuous drone of announcements, which are supposed to create a positive atmosphere, are intrusive.

So, the investment in the look of the new trains is let down by the poor appeal of the train to the other senses.

A positive example of a company getting it right is global cruise liner company MSC. It recently invested in the creation of its own, bespoke aroma that is lightly diffused around its ships in order to create an emotional brand connection for the consumer.

Loyalty and impact
The importance of smell is often overlooked by marketers; however smell is unique among the senses. Scientific investigation has discovered that the sense of smell is directly linked to the limbic system in the brain via the olfactory nerve. This nerve bypasses the cortex where rational thought is mostly processed and goes to the emotional centre of our brain where our instincts and memories are processed. It cuts through rational thought and visual messages and leads to compulsive, non-conscious behaviour.

When the fragrance is specifically developed around a brand proposition, rather than just generic, it builds brand loyalty and impact.

In the UK, Royal Mail has recognised this and, not so long ago, introduced a new form of ‘sensory’ direct mail. The direct mailer campaign took the form of a letter made out of chocolate, packed in a box. The message, engraved on the chocolate, explained how ‘sensory’ direct mail offers a unique and ideal way to engage all five senses. Results from the launch campaign revealed a staggeringly high recall rate of 81 per cent, much higher than conventional DM campaigns.

Not convinced yet?
Well, what about one of the biggest global brands of all – Coca-Cola? Here is a brand that has literally spent billions on teaching the world to sing and ensuring that we buy the ‘real’ thing.

Advertising agency owners have made their fortunes by creating glossy, star-studded global campaigns that adhere to probably the strictest brand guidelines in the business.

And, while all this was going on, Coke managed to throw away one of their most distinctive brand identities – the ice-cold iconic glass Coke bottle. A bottle the public loved. An historical masterpiece. A piece of cultural iconography, if you will.

And, would you believe it, they chucked it in the bin!

You can almost imagine the meeting at which the senior VPs became convinced that plastic bottles and cans would be better, cheaper and easier to lug around. That small saving per bottle means tens of millions of dollars of extra shareholder value,
they thought!

Well, possibly it did in the short term, but in the long term it’s proved to be a disaster. Now, a Coke can or bottle is indistinguishable from the myriad other competitors on the shelf.

You see, the public liked the way the bottle felt in their hands, how it pressed against their lips. They liked the memories of youth it held for them. They perceived that, thanks to the glass bottle, the drink was also original, unique and even colder (it wasn’t).

So, in essence, here is a brand that threw away its unique ability to appeal to all five senses (bottle touch, taste and smell of the drink, sight of distinct black liquid, sound of the bubbles and the satisfying ‘glug’ when drinking an ‘ice-cold Coke’). I am happy to report that, today, the Coca-Cola organisation is returning to its core values and is re-introducing the bottle.

Well done to them for some long called for clear-headed thinking! So, if you are a marketer pondering why your latest product launch didn’t work as well as you’d hoped, or are trying to plan the launch of a new product, stop and consider – does your plan just mean reaching out to consumers’ eyes and ears? If so, it is likely the product will join the eight out of ten launches which are discarded
to the marketing wayside.

Simon Harrop is director, Brand Sense.