TOWARDS THE SENSORY MARKETING: STIMULATING THE FIVE SENSES (SIGHT, HEARING, SMELL, TOUCH AND TASTE) AND ITS IMPACT ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Current development of sensory marketing indicates the emergence of a new era in the field of marketing : an era in which the five senses of consumers will be the focus of marketing strategies and techniques. That's why marketers, free from mass marketing and advertising practices, use new, stimulating and innovative procedures to impact and influence the customers. This paper introduces sensory marketing as a new paradigm in the field of marketing; attention to the five senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch) and the effect of these senses on consumer behavior are studied. The statistical population consisted of 234 customers in a multi-purpose shopping center in Tabriz and they were chosen by random sampling. For collecting data, we used a questionnaire whose reliability was 0.838. Our findings indicate that the five senses simultaneously affect consumer behavior. Stimulating the senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch and taste also affect consumer behavior. Thus, the results indicate that strategic stimulation of the senses of the consumer in marketing process can be one of the practical methods of companies and retailers to attract customers and increase their loyalty.