Brand Sense

The Five Senses

Branding is undergoing a sea change. In the past, manufacturers owned brands, but in the future the consumer will own them. Brand effectiveness is dropping. To get and hold consumer attention, future brands will have to resonate with all five senses and emotions.

In the 1950s, marketers developed the “Unique Selling Proposition,” which focused more on products’ physical differences and less on brands. In the 1960s, brands regained emphasis via the “Emotional Selling Proposition,” based on fostering the consumer’s attachment to the product. Coke and Pepsi created emotional identities based on their labels, not their colas. The 1980s “Organizational Selling Proposition” touted a brand’s business aspects, and in the 1990s, marketers focused on the “Brand Selling Proposition,” which made brands more powerful than products. In this environment, the Harry Potter, M&M, Disney and Pokémon brands carried the brand story beyond the anchor product itself and into ancillary offerings. The change in branding eventually became evident in the late 1990s with the “Me Selling Proposition,” marking the consumers’ tendency to develop more personal attachments to their...