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New Territories in Sensations and Experiences Drawn from Packages

A journey through the senses and new opportunities facing consumers brought by packaging innovation, creating better experiences. This was the theme of our latest webinar of the second EXPO PACK Mexico and Mundo PMMI series, conducted by Carlos Velasco.

Photo 1 – Caption: With an audience of over 570 attendees from all over Latin America, Carlos Velasco shared several ideas regarding the vision he has developed through his more than ten years of research in the experiences and multisensory packaging fields.
Photo 1 – Caption: With an audience of over 570 attendees from all over Latin America, Carlos Velasco shared several ideas regarding the vision he has developed through his more than ten years of research in the experiences and multisensory packaging fields.

With an audience of over 570 attendees from all over Latin America, Carlos Velasco shared several ideas regarding the vision he has developed through his more than ten years of research in the experiences and multisensory packaging fields.

Based on his work as an associate professor at the Norwegian Business School BI and supported by his Experimental Psychology studies at Oxford University, Velasco has been exploring how the senses and the existent knowledge about them play a role and are applied in the development and design of packages.

In this presentation, Carlos Velasco explained how in the current experience of a client with a product/package goes hand in hand with previous perceptions and altogether impact considerations and decisions before, during, and after completing a purchase. This is what Velasco calls “the client’s journey”, an ensemble of experiences that, in hand, will determine future experiences. 

And “experience” was the resounding word throughout Velasco’s talk, as its concrete explanation —which has been subject to debate amongst the research community— points to the connection a person makes with a certain event through the five senses or “the impression left on someone by an occurrence or event”, as he explained it in the EXPO PACK webinar.

In this client’s journey the contact points (such as a package) that the traveler establishes with a brand, along with the knowledge on its multisensorial properties, are the core elements in designing specific experiences.

Brands may set more than thirty contact points with their clients, including elements such as packaging, the environment, its websites, participation in trade fairs, public relations, and even word-of-mouth messaging; these serve as a stage on which to build client-product relationships that surpass the limits known up till now.


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Velasco has summarized this concept in his book Multisensory Experiences: Where the Senses Meet Technology, coauthored by Marianna Obrist and published last month by Oxford University Press, where he indicates that “multisensory experiences refer to the impressions created through specific events, whose sensory elements have been carefully crafted by someone. The senses are at the center of the formation of an impression.”

Creating Sensory Signatures

In the future, when more technologies come into play with the “client’s journey” and these become integrated with the consumer experience world, examples as those presented by Carlos Velasco during his talk will become increasingly widespread. These, along with several others, are included in his book Multisensory Packaging: Designing New Product Experiences, coauthored by Charles Spence and published in 2019.

During packaging’s long history, its essential purposes of protection and conservation have developed to include multisensory properties that push the level of experience of customers with brands far beyond. For example, a carton package of Coca-Cola allowed for its conversion into a virtual reality gadget to be used with smartphones.

The packaging for the popular soda Orangina resembles an orange peel, arranged in such a way that the consumer opens the bottle simulating the action of peeling the fruit, which creates the idea of naturalness and freshness of the beverage through a tactile sensation.

The packaging for the popular soda Orangina resembles an orange peel, arranged in such a way that the consumer opens the bottle simulating the action of peeling the fruit, which creates the idea of naturalness and freshness of the beverage through a tactile sensation. Credit: Orangina – Source: www.facebook.com/OranginaInternationalThe packaging for the popular soda Orangina resembles an orange peel, arranged in such a way that the consumer opens the bottle simulating the action of peeling the fruit, which creates the idea of naturalness and freshness of the beverage through a tactile sensation.
Credit: Orangina – Source: www.facebook.com/OranginaInternational
 Sound, as an element of creation for a multisensory experience, was used by the Japanese beer Asahi for its premium class, after a thorough investigation throughout four European countries by Velasco revealing the association consumers make between a product’s high quality and loud and blunt sounds, as was demonstrated during the webinar. The use of these resources through packaging gains broader worldwide acceptance every day: “Currently, many brands are in pursuit of sensory signatures that are truly distinctive”, said Carlos Velasco as he illustrated his statement with the case of Snapple bottle caps, that have created a unique identity element within their category with their characteristic sound.

Snapple, with its caps, has created a unique identity element within their category with its characteristic ´Pop´ sound when consumer open the bottle. Credit: Snapple Puerto Rico. Source: Snapple - Dancing Youtube video.Snapple, with its caps, has created a unique identity element within their category with its characteristic ´Pop´ sound when consumer open the bottle.
Credit: Snapple Puerto Rico. Source: Snapple - Dancing Youtube video.
 In 1915, Coca-Cola requested a bottle that was recognizable by the sound it made when breaking against the ground or while being touchedin the dark”, commented Velasco to further illustrate the sensory identity of packaging.

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