Sinnesmarknadsföring vid småskalig handel i butiksmiljö : En kvalitativ och kvantitativ studie om sinnesmarknadsföringens användning hos företag samt uppfattning hos kunder

In present day, people are exposed to increasingly amounts of commercials and brands wherecompanies constantly aim to increase revenue and to strengthen their brand name within themarket. The great task with differentiating and communicating ones brand have because ofthis led to greater importance when the supply of brands also increase. The former massmarketing and relationship marketing have in many ways focused on communicating theproducts and the brand that surrounds them. In the emerging social culture where focus onexperiences from a product and its brand has begun to break new ground, a new kind ofmarketing becomes important, called sensory marketing.The purpose of sensory marketing is to influence the five senses and to offer the customer anexperience that is delivered through different stimulations and aimed towards the senses.Researchers argue that this kind of marketing becomes more individual and contributes withtools to further communicate a brands identity and values. Besides this, the simulations canalso influence customers‟ perceptions and values in a direct or indirect way. When searchingfor literature connected to sensory marketing, many examples tend to treat how this conceptis handled by larger corporations whereas smaller stores and their use of sensory marketingleft out. The purpose of this study is to explore how stores of smaller scale in a store settingconsciously or unconsciously apply sensory marketing. This study also investigates to whichextent the concept is used and how this might be perceived by customers.To investigate this, observations in four stores has been conducted, along with interviewswith four store managers followed by interviews with 48 customers, 12 from each store. Theextent of how this is applied has been investigated by a quantitative method throughinterviews. How sensory marketing is used and how the customers perceive this has beenexplored by a qualitative method in form of a semi-structured interview. The study shows avariation in how the companies apply different methods in order to create sensorialexperiences towards the customers. The extent varied where the smell- and taste sensesshowed to be behind in usage compared to the other senses. In conclusion, the study showedhow the expectations on specific experiences varied.Validerat; 20130618 (global_studentproject_submitter