The effect of the senses on the perception of a brand

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Against the background of the challenge marketers face in influencingconsumer perceptions of brands, this study attempts to assess the effect ofthe senses on the perception of a brand. Perception is the way in whichconsumers interpret the world around them, with the senses as the receptorsof information from the environment. One way of influencing consumerperceptions is by stimulating or involving multiple senses in brand building. Totest this statement, the following research question was drawn: ‘Do thesenses affect the perception of a brand?’The empirical study was one of an experimental nature, and a 2 x 2 x 2factorial design was used to assess the effect of the senses on the perceptionof a brand. In order to focus the research and to provide information to aleading distributor of alcohol spirits in South Africa, it was decided toconcentrate on alcohol, more specifically, brandy. Due to the nature of theselected brand, sensory properties in relation to the product were used tomeasure the effect of the senses on brand perception. The nature of thebrand is a consumable, and taste was used as the dependant variable tomeasure perceptions. The stimulated senses in the experiment are sight,sound and smell. The stimuli were: sight with the visible brandy colour, soundin the form of brandy being poured into a glass and smell as an enhancedhoney aroma. Several experiments were conducted in a sensory laboratory,which assessed the effect of the senses on the perception of a brand, by wayof individual main effects, two-way interactions and a three-way interaction. A convenience sample of 240 alcohol spirit consumers, from the Western Cape,was used to conduct the experiment.The empirical results indicated that the three independent variables (individualmain effects or two-way interactions) did not have significant effects onperception. Most importantly, it was found that the three-way interaction ofsight, sound and smell did have a significant effect on the perception of abrand. Therefore, this study revealed that multiple stimulated senses affectthe perception of a brand.