Activate the Senses in Product Images

Most products are multi-sensory.

Consider wine. It has color, fizz, fragrance, texture, and other traits besides taste.

Well, these sensory traits are embedded in the neural wiring of your concept for wine (Barsalou, 1999). By including all sensory traits in your product imagery:

• Your wine will be activated more intensely.
• Intense activation strengthens emotions.
• Stronger emotions motivate purchases.

How to Apply

• Display Scented Objects. In Walmart’s catalog, only 27% of scented products actually show the scented object in the product image (yet these products earn higher ratings; Sharma & Estes, 2024).
• Enlarge the Trigger. Add more flowers, etc. (Lyu & Huang, 2024).
• Strengthen the Trigger. Not all triggers are equal. Cleaning products are preferred with images of sliced lemons because you can see the inside juices, so you feel a stronger sensation (Sharma & Estes, 2024). Perhaps you could bolster cinnamon sticks with ground cinnamon (which exudes a stronger aroma).

• Add Videos With Sounds. Blenders and knives seem more powerful when they emit loud sounds (Ringler et al., 2021; Løkke‐Andersen et al., 2022).
• Include Sensory Words. Words like crumble and juicy can activate the senses more than images. In sponsored videos on TikTok, each additional sensory word was associated with 11k more likes and comments (Silva et al., 2021; Cascio et al., 2023).

• Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and brain sciences, 22(4), 577-660.
• Cascio Rizzo, G. L., Berger, J., De Angelis, M., & Pozharliev, R. (2023). How sensory language shapes influencer’s impact. Journal of Consumer Research, 50(4), 810-825.
• Chen, Y. C., & Spence, C. (2010). When hearing the bark helps to identify the dog: Semantically-congruent sounds modulate the identification of masked pictures. Cognition, 114(3), 389-404.
• Hattula, J. D., Herzog, W., & Dhar, R. (2023). The impact of touchscreen devices on consumers’ choice confidence and purchase likelihood. Marketing Letters, 34(1), 35-53.
• Løkke‐Andersen, C. B., Wang, Q. J., & Giacalone, D. (2022). User experience design approaches for accommodating high “need for touch” consumers in ecommerce. Journal of sensory studies, 37(2), e12727.
• Lyu, M., & Huang, Q. (2024). Visual elements in advertising enhance odor perception and purchase intention: The role of mental imagery in multi-sensory marketing. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 78, 103752.
• Ringler, C., Sirianni, N. J., & Christenson, B. (2021). The power of consequential product sounds. Journal of Retailing, 97(2), 288-300.
• Sharma, V., & Estes, Z. (2024). Seeing is smelling: Pictures improve product evaluations by evoking olfactory imagery. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 41(2), 282-307.
• Silva, S. C., Rocha, T. V., De Cicco, R., Galhanone, R. F., & Mattos, L. T. M. F. (2021). Need for touch and haptic imagery: An investigation in online fashion shopping. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 59, 102378.