Nudge Wiki

Concept

Multisensory Perception (Sensehacking)

sensory-marketing perception sound smell

How something looks, sounds, and smells measurably changes how it tastes, how fast or powerful it seems, and how much people are willing to pay for it — even when the underlying product is completely unchanged. Charles Spence, drawing on his book Sensehacking, and Adrian North document dozens of real-world and laboratory demonstrations of this "crossmodal" effect.

Sight changes taste. In 2011, Coca-Cola released a limited-edition white can (for polar bear conservation) with an unchanged recipe inside — many drinkers reported the drink now tasted different, and the backlash led Coca-Cola to revert to red cans within weeks (see White Coca-Cola Can Taste-Perception Case). A 2020 study found diners rated an identical bowl of tomato soup as tasting about 10% better when served on a white tablecloth than with no tablecloth at all (see Bschaden Tablecloth Soup-Taste Study (2020)).

Sound changes perceived power and speed. A 2008 study found participants shown a video of a car with its engine sound quietened by five decibels underestimated the car's actual speed by 10% relative to participants who heard the unmodified sound. The same logic explains why it's notoriously difficult to convince people a quiet vacuum cleaner is picking up as much dirt as a louder one, why some supercar manufacturers deliberately amplify engine sound, why a 2015 study found an artificially noisier showerhead made users believe water flow was higher (a possible water-conservation nudge), and why a 2018 study found participants shown a paused tennis shot with an artificially louder racket-ball contact sound judged the ball would travel further into the opponent's court than when the same contact sound was quieter — even though the visual information available was identical in every condition (see Sound-Power Perception Cases). Red cars, separately, are perceived as faster and louder than identically-specified cars of other colors — worth knowing if trying to avoid a speeding ticket.

Smell changes perceived quality and drives sales. Rolls-Royce reportedly sprays a specific "new car smell" (a blend evoking a vintage 1965 Silver Cloud) into serviced cars before returning them to owners, who then report the car feels newer and better-performing than before — despite the actual mechanical work being comparatively minor (see Rolls-Royce New-Car-Smell Case). A 2019 Dutch study found diffusing a synthetic melon scent through a supermarket raised sales 15%; Dunkin Donuts' "Flavor Radio" campaign on Seoul buses released a coffee scent whenever its jingle played on the bus radio, driving a 16% increase in nearby store visits and a 29% increase in coffee sales (see Scent Marketing Melon and Dunkin Donuts Cases).

Shape and sound symbolism affect taste directly, not just association. People consistently match invented spiky-sounding words ("kiki") to angular shapes and soft-sounding words ("booba") to rounded shapes, a pairing that replicates across languages (see Köhler Kiki-Bouba Shape-Sound Study). Spence used this to correctly predict that rounding Cadbury Dairy Milk's chocolate-bar shape (done in practice to quietly reduce the bar's weight) would make the same recipe taste sweeter to consumers — and it did, triggering a public backlash from people who (wrongly) believed the recipe itself had changed (see Cadbury Dairy Milk Rounded-Bar Taste Case).

Congruent background music improves ad recall, not just mood. Adrian North found that when an ad's background music was clearly thematically linked to a specific product feature, participants recalled that feature significantly better than when the same ad used unrelated music — turning music choice from a vague "vibes" decision into a theoretically-grounded advertising tool (see Adrian North Ad-Music Congruence Recall Study).

Discussed in

  • Episode 260 — 260-how-sights-smells-and-sounds-alter-what-you-buy

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