Multisensory marketing throughout the customer journey

Abstract

This chapter investigates the critical role of multisensory marketing in shaping consumer experiences across the customer journey. Drawing on theories of consciousness and predictive coding, it reframes the customer journey as a lived, sensory-driven process in which experience emerges through the dynamic interplay of perception, expectation, and context. Rather than treating sensory cues as peripheral, the chapter foregrounds them as central to how consumers attend to, interpret, and remember brand encounters. It introduces the concept of a sensory ecosystem, a coherent orchestration of sensory inputs across physical, digital, and interpersonal touchpoints, and shows how intrinsic and extrinsic sensory features contribute to conscious engagement and brand meaning over time. Through examples from packaging design, digital environments, and hybrid retail contexts, the chapter demonstrates how carefully calibrated sensory experiences can foster affective resonance, guide attention, and enhance memory. It further argues that moderate sensory incongruity, when strategically employed, can heighten engagement and differentiation, while excessive incongruity risks disrupting experience coherence. Importantly, the chapter calls for more nuanced, ethically grounded approaches to sensory design that recognize the variability in consumer preferences, goals, and sensory sensitivities. As firms seek to build lasting consumer relationships in increasingly phygital and immersive environments, understanding the role of the senses not only in shaping behaviour but in constituting consumer consciousness becomes essential.