The Hindu Business Line : Towards a holistic selling proposition

It may sound like commonsense that you can build powerful brands through all the five senses - touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. Yet, less than one in ten top brands demonstrates `a sensory blending platform,' informs Martin Lindstrom's Brand Sense from Kogan Page (www.vivagroupindia.com) .

The author is hopeful that the proportion would grow to one in three `within the next five years.' And if you wonder how your brand can make such a sensory transition, Lindstrom offers help in what's billed as `the most creative and authoritative book' on the topic, based on a study across a dozen countries.

"It is not enough to present a product or service visually in an ad. It pays to attach a sound, such as music or powerful words and symbols," writes Philip Kotler in his foreword. "The combination of visual and audio stimuli delivers a 2+2=5 impact."

The 1950s branding belonged to the USP or unique selling proposition, writes Lindstrom, who founded his first ad agency at the age of twelve. The 1960s saw ESP, he recounts; E stood for emotional. OSP, the organisational variety, came in the 1980s; "the internal spirit of the company was so strong that its employees became the main ambassadors for its brand."

BSP or brand selling proposition took over in the '90s, when brands such as Harry Potter, Pokemon, Disney or M&Ms were everywhere, and consumers were "more fixated on the brand than the stories." Towards the end of the decade, a shift happened towards MSP; that's `Me,' with "consumers taking ownership of their brands." For example, "Nike and Levi's Web sites offer to customise any of their models exactly to your need and size."

The current realm, according to Lindstrom, is one of HSP, the holistic selling proposition. "Each holistic brand has its own identity, one that is expressed in its every message, shape, symbol, ritual, and tradition - just as sports teams and religion do today."

We have a five-track memory to store all our values, feelings and emotions, points out the author. "They can fast forward or backtrack at will, and stop just exactly on the right spot in a split second." Anomalously, "not many advertising campaigns, communication plans, or brand-building exercises utilise much more than sight and sound to put their message across."

The author gets you, therefore, to sniff through the pages for the secret behind the `new-car smell.' Also, get a tactile feel of `snap, crackle, and pop' of Rice Krispies. And don't miss Stefan Floridian Waters, `the patented aroma' that Singapore Airlines uses "to kick-start a kaleidoscope of smooth comfortable memories."

Just as smell is connected to memory, sound is linked to mood, and can create emotions. "A love movie isn't nearly as emotional if you watch with the sound off." The book reports that more than 40 per cent of consumers believe that the cell phone ring tone is more important than the phone's design! A research study by Ronald E. Millman found that `slower the music, the more people shop.'

Lindstrom notes that loss of hearing can be worse than loss of sight. He cites from a 1910 letter of Helen Keller: "The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important, than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus - the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir and keeps us in the intellectual company of man."

In conclusion, Lindstrom writes that a true HSP brand cannot be logo-centric because "its power is embedded in every aspect of the brand," leveraging "every possible channel to communicate its philosophy."

Wholesome read.

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

D. Murali