Emotions and sensoriality
“In addition to researchers working on the sensory, we wanted to open the debate to marketing departments, consumers and product designers, and thus make it an inspiring event”, explains Frédéric Le Gall, the congress organizer.
Sensory Congress, 2014
“Emotions lie at the core of perception, communication, motivation and decision-making. They bear an influence on the sensory experience, and they promote action,” explained Arnaud Aubert, professor at the University of Tours, France, at the start of the debate. Emotional priming associated with sensory input thus seems to act on sensory feelings on a global level. “People who are made to see pleasant images such as baby faces for a few milliseconds will then pay increased attention to things,” specifies David Sander, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
It has therefore become a strategic challenge to take consumers’ emotions into account. Several approaches seem possible, and everyone agrees with the fact that, as Arnaud Aubert states, “it is necessary to adopt a multidimensional approach with multidisciplinary research”.
Analysis tools
Among the study tools available, some favour physiological measurements and assess cardiac coherence, record voices, or study the zygomaticus major muscle, while others base their research on questionnaires and interviews, knowing that a large number of individuals (between 60 and 200) should be involved to get interpretable and reproducible results. Indeed, emotions are multiple, and although Alain Finkel considers “95 % of our emotions actually come down to the four basic ones, that is, anger, fear, joy and sadness”, there are emotions integrated to the product, and also others that are incidental, and can be related to the emotions triggered by music in a store, or by the facial expression of a sales assistant.
Sensory Congress, 2014
This rich world fascinates researchers, and marketing departments are starting to make it their own. Can we not already see relaxing, boosting products on the market? They might well be the first of future claims for products conveying joy and elation.
The next edition of Sensory will be held at the end of June 2016.
