By Russell Jones

I believe we’re just about to enter a new era, where a more holistic, multi-sensory and evidence based design approach will become part of the fabric of everyday life; best practice and just the way things are done, across a wealth of consumer facing sectors. And it will impact the way we all design, and care about human experience.

Led by well-informed, reputable studios like us, and visionary leaders in product design and branding, property development, and hospitality, ‘Multisensory’ is stepping out of the shadows of gimmickry and novelty; and into the light, being a fundamental part of creation and design, using meaningful insights to create measurably more effective, engaging, emotional, relevant communications, product experiences and environments.

The word ‘multi-sensory’ is often used flippantly to describe any activity that involves the inclusion of any sense above and beyond visual. If an event features aroma, it’s a multisensory event. If someone picks up piece of packaging with an enticing texture to a pack, they say it’s very sensorial. To some extent, in fact all extents, every experience we ever have is multi-sensory. Our senses are always sensing, and every thing they’re sensing is being muddled up together, and together they’re effecting our experience in the moment. Eating is always a multi-sensory experience. Running is a multi-sensory experience. Being on the toilet is a multi-sensory experience.

Therefore, a designed multi-sensory experience has to be more than the mere presence of sensory elements in an environment or as part of an experience like touching that lovely packaging. When we take a multi-sensory, or cross-modal design approach, it means to consider how every sensory element works together, and what influence they have both individually, and as a combined whole, on your emotion, perception, behaviour, and physiology. It’s about understanding the science behind how each sensory stimulus interacts, and designing them together with purpose. Choosing the shape of a can to make a deodorant feel more invigorating. The tschhh! in an advert that makes a drink seem more appealing. The lighting in a store to encourage exploration and interaction. Matching a texture with a sound, ensuring physical shape coalesces with smell.

It is fundamentally the use of evidence to inform creativity. Designing with purpose. Knowing the desired outcome and setting the guardrails towards designing that goal by understanding the science of how to get there. The knowledge we have is drawn if not entirely from an area of study termed ‘cross-modal neuroscience’. This is the science of how the senses and emotions are connected, through ‘cross-modal correspondences’, and how our senses are the superhighway to our emotions; and emotions are the true driver of experience, choice, and action.

Scientists have been discovering for decades that high pitch pianos are associated with sweet tastes. Heavy weight is associated with thickness and quality. If a logo faces right the brand is seen as forward thinking. From Holt-Hansen linking frequencies of sound to Carlsberg Elephant beer on university campuses in the ‘60’s, to modern day academics in the field like Charles Spence, Barry Smith, Carlos Velasco, who have been systematically mapping textures with sounds, colours with shapes. Shapes with emotions. Smells with behaviour. Broadening our knowledge of how our senses and emotions work together.

When I first started working in this field over 15 years ago, experimenting with Professors Spence and Smith, the area was little known. And almost non-existent was the creative application of this insight in any sector of design. It was only with visionaries like Heston Blumenthal that we first found an outlet for these fascinating scientific insights in the world of consumer-facing experiences. When we created the sound for the famous Sounds of the Sea dish at the Fat Duck, the idea of food being paired with sound was revolutionary.

It was within the world of food and drink that the practice of creating ‘multisensory experiences’ gained its first traction. It was easy to see the application and benefits of it as an approach. After all, eating is possibly the most multisensory thing we do. And it’s within the drinks industry that we as an company first found success. Educating consumers about the complexity of a whisky by changing colours and sounds in a room (such as at the Singleton Sensorium), is an easy sell. That event, and many more like it, generated tons of PR and talkability for the brands that saw the potential.

But PR is one thing. The only way multisensory marketing and design could cross over into everyday practice, across all industries and market sectors, is to be able to generate proven benefits in ROI, as well as lifts in things like brand tracking, customer engagement and so on.

Over the past 4 or 5 years this has become more and more of a reality. Under the radar (as most work is strictly hush hush) we have proved an uplift in sales, perceived value, brand engagement and emotional attachment, with products that have been developed, or retail environments that have been designed, using our scientifically based proprietary Sensory Prescriptions®; strategic cross-sensory and cross-disciplinary design guidelines.

A multisensory approach can mean different things across sectors and at different stages of development.

In the world of FMCG and other products, you start right upstream at R&D and product development, a multisensory approach would can lay the fundamental foundations for the whole journey out to the ocean of the marketplace. It can identify the key sensory pillars that become a golden thread running through all product and brand output. Aligning every stage, design discipline and steak holder to a true north star. From product conception, a sensory approach can inform colour, shape, opacity, viscocity; the shape and sound of its name. What sounds the product should make. It’s weight. The packaging textures. Use of colour and shape. The smell. All defined and to enhance the product experience and become a memorable.

At a brand and marketing level, a multisensory approach means widening your field to a rich sensory palette of distinctive assets; a brand texture, sound, music, scent, use of light, movement, interaction, ritual. And ensuring you are conveying the right sensory and emotional attributes through every touchpoint. Making sure the whole essence of the design and branding is sensorially in-line. Acting in the most effective way. Communicating its purpose and benefits to the consumer instinctually. Enhancing consumer perception and perceived value through every interaction.

When we cross over into the built environment – to our public spaces, homes, workplaces, leisure envi5eeronments – the potential impact is profound; and we enter what we call ‘the playground for the senses’. Colour light, sound, shape, texture, temperature and scent take on functions beyond improving product experiences and begin affecting human performance and wellbeing.

In every application, when a strategic sensory approach is embedded and weaved into the core of the development and design process, it doesn’t shout out and proclaim itself “This is multisensory!”. It’s hidden. Integrated. An underlying force that empowers and enables every facet to operate at its best.

As humans we use all of our senses all the time to evaluate the world around us. And so, all forms of design should pay attention to every sense in the creation of the world around us and the items we use and consume in our daily lives. It’s the new era in human centric design. And its application can influence everything from our living environments to digital experiences and hair products, or how you enjoy your wine at home (listen to Blondie with a Chablis – it tastes 15% more zingy!). Like Dorothy walking out into technicolour Oz. We are entering a new vivid and rich world. And we are all finally coming to our senses.