Student number: 366756

IntroductionDisney is one of the most successful companies, which effectively apply sensory branding (Lindstrom, 2010). Apparently, this is one of the main reasons why its brand image can be firmly tacked in many people’s heart. Children are more easily attached to brand that makes use of human’s five senses because they are approximately twice times as sensitive as an adult (Lindstrom, 2010). It is not surprising as newborn babies come to the world and learn new things through their senses. Disney persuades parents to bring their children to the park to learn with fun and create memorable meanwhile Disney try to wake up the children in the parents’ heart.

Sensory experience and feeling are linked with memory, which have a great impact in children’s mind. This helps to leverage the brand equity and increase the retention rate even after their customers have grown up.This report is mainly focus on sensory analysis of the theme park – the Disneyland Resort and some recommendations will be provided.  

Sensory Analysis

Sight:It was said that about 25% of the human brain is participated in processing visual data (Pradeep, 2010). When visiting the Disneyland, people tend to switch on their senses as they are coming all the way to experience things that they cannot easily find or see in their daily lives, for examples the landmark of Disneyland – the castle and other beautiful architectures. Albeit Disney gets this advantage, it still attends to every detail to amuse its guests. In Hong Kong, Disney arranges the amazing journey for people not only at the moment they enter the park but also far away before they arrived. The train to Disneyland is tailored for its guests, such as windows and handrails with the shape of Mickey Mouse and many different sculptures of Disney characters. The seats are also designed to face outward which guests can see that they have passed through the underground tunnel and escape to a beautiful landscape surrounding by sea and mountains. Disney intends to create the feeling of entering to its magical world.

Sound:Auditory experience is the second common tactic used by marketers. Disney educates people in various way including to promote the prominent Disney cartoon movies where affective songs are played throughout the whole scene. Disney chooses those joyful music tracks to play on the train and all over the park, even in the lavatory, due to the reason that pleasant music can evoke the reward system in our brain enhancing good mood (Blood and Zatorre, PNAS, 2001). With this cheerful and excited

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Student number: 366756

emotion, guests will tend to evaluate their trip more positively when they do not conscious that their mood is fluctuated with the music (Cohen, Pham, & Andrade, 2008). Music genre used for a product promotion can help building identification of its brand subliminally (Kellaris, 2008). On iTunes, Disney albums fall into the genre by its own name (Disney genre). This genre is always about fantasy, dreams and magic, in fact, consistent with Disney’s brand association.    

Touch:Horink (as cited in Peck & Childers, 2008) found that an unpretentious touch by the employees enhance positive emotion towards the environment and the employees. Therefore, interaction with the well-known characters, such as having a big hug or shaking hands rather than just sitting in the cinema watching the movies, increase the level of guests excitement.  There are many attractions in the park that are involved with touch feeling. For the Disney Parade, guests are not only watching cars and characters showing up, but also involve in it, for instance, in summer time, the characters always carry the water guns with them and shoot at the audience for them to feel the coolness of water.

Smell:Acting as the only sense connecting to the cortex directly, olfactory sense provokes emotional response followed by memory of smell formed when the stimulus of smell passes through the thalamus (Lefton, Brannon, Boyes, & Ogden, 2000). Research from Spangenberg et al. (as cited in Peck & Childers, 2008) revealed that filling with scent in the environment can help to generate overall positive evaluation. To benefit with exploring odor, Disney installed Smellitzer system throughout the park (FindMickey). On the main street, Guest can sniff the caramel or fresh baked bread from the candy kitchen and bakery. Whereas, in Pirates of the Caribbean, one of the attractions, guests can smell salt sea and recall the scene related to sea from movies and may copy the behavior of pirates in movies. Different scent matching events in different attractions foster the feeling of life-like incident, which eventually add bonus to the overall experience.

Taste:The blind test on beer by Allison and Uh1 (as cited in Peck & Childers, 2008) suggests that the brand can actually affect the evaluation of taste. Inside the theme park, guests who are in favor of the Disney brand will rate the taste higher.  Moreover, both intrinsic and extrinsic cues can affect the evaluation of product quality (Quester et al, 2007). Regarding to intrinsic cues, the flavor of food is heavily affected by the smell (Lefton, Brannon, Boyes, & Ogden, 2000). With the help of the Smellitzer system, the quality of food can be leveraged. Packaging and restaurant atmosphere are extrinsic cues of evaluating product quality, restaurants in Disneyland are well-designed with decoration of Disney characters states and many food or dinnerware are made in the characters’ shape.  

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Student number: 366756

Emotion and LearningIn order to encourage people to proactive engage with the characters, Disney promote an advertisement where people were shaking hands with Mickey Mouse. This fires the mirror neuron network in the brain, which people learn by watching and believing they will get their rewards – the excited experience, if they mimic guests in the advertisement (Pradeep, 2010). Similar incident happens in Disneyland where with staffs always carry a big smile and act energetically, guests are inspired to act correspondingly. Under motivation model, positive emotions motivate people to approach environmental stimulus (Smith & Kossyln, 2007). This can imply guests in Disneyland having a pleasant mood are more likely to open up their mind to the stimulus in every corner.

Conclusion and RecommendationsMany marketers emphasize on branding their products or services through visual information and sound. However, human brain does not take all information indicating a certain amount of stimulus is required to get people attention (Lefton, Brannon, Boyes, & Ogden, 2000). By using other senses, people can more easily aware the surrounding information, in other words, it helps to strengthen the brand equity.

Disney has been using a lot of sensory stimulus in the Disneyland. More tactics can be applied for sound and touch sensory. For sound sensory, Disney can install voice for the characters who responsive to greeting and taking photos with guests because the voice for some characters such as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck are firmly nailed in many guests’ brain through Disney movies. This can increase the arousal level of delight.  For touch sensory, Disney can attach some free gifts in the park map for every guest in the entrance, such as a cardboard-made Mickey Mouse ears, one of the symbols of Disney, which guests can touch, feel and wear for their whole trip so as to fully immerse into the amazing journey.

References Cohen, J. B., Pham, M. T., & Andrade, E. B. (2008). The Nature and Role of Affect in Consumer Behavior, in Handbook of Consumer Psychology, Haugtvedt, C. P., Herr. P. M., & Kardes, F. R. (Eds.), New York: Erlbaum, 297-348.

FindMickey. Retrieved September 09, 2011, from http://findingmickey.comKellaris, J. J. (2008). Music and Consumers, in Handbook of Consumer Psychology, Haugtvedt C., Herr P,, & Kardes F. R., (Eds.), New York: Erlbaum, 837-856.Kosslyn, S. M., & Rosenberg, R. S. (2006). Psychology: In Context (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

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Lefton, Brannon, Boyes, & Ogden. (2000). Psychology. Lindstrom, M. (2010). Brand Sense: sensory secrets behind the stuff we buy. London: Kogan Page.Peck, J., & Childers, T. L. (2008). Sensory Factors and Consumer Behavior, in Handbook of Consumer Psychology, Haugtvedt, C. P., Herr. P. M., & Kardes, F. R. (Eds.), New York: Erlbaum, 193-219.Pradeep, A. K. (2010). The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Quester, P., Neal, C., Pettigrew, S., Grimmer, M. Davis, T., & Hawkins, D. L. (2007). Consumer Behaviour: Implications for Marketing Strategy.Smith, E. E., & Kossyln, S. M. (2007). Cognitive Psychology: Mind and Brain. Upper Salle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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