Food Experience Marketing: When It Is Not the Dish That sells, But the Emotion That Arouses
- giuliapedrinivisio
- Jun 19
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 25
Author: Giulia Pedrini
Feelings and Emotions: the Experience to Sensory Marketing
In a world where people have developed their critical thinking more and more every day, it is increasingly difficult to meet customer expectations. And this does not only apply to shops selling products, but also and especially to those selling services.
Marketing today must be able to transmit sensations to customers, who are fascinated more by the experience that marketing manages to create around it than by the product or service itself. This is because the Internet and social media flatten what people feed on: feelings and emotions. This is why food and wine experiences were born, to make a service a true moment of encounter with the other and with oneself.
When a consumer approaches a product he does so by awakening all his five senses. In the same way, when a client enters a restaurant, sight, smell, hearing, touch and especially taste are awakened in him/her in theory. I say in theory because in recent years people can no longer appreciate the dish they are eating if their other senses are not also satisfied. Let's see how the five senses can impact the customer's experience.
Sight
First of all, a customer when entering a restaurant appreciates its ambience. Starting with the interior design, which must manage to immerse the customer in the atmosphere desired by the manager. Then he/she also appreciates the lighting of the restaurant, whether soft, natural, cold or warm. No less important is the structure and layout of the menu, which can be printed or digital (via QRcodes). The presence of green spaces such as gardens or open doors also seems to be highly appreciated.
But it is not only this that catches our eyes: the colours and the presentation of the food also impresses our mind. Indeed, these things are able to condition our experience in a restaurant. For example, bright colours like red and orange stimulate the appetite or colours like green convey the idea of healthy food.
Smell
The sense of smell is equally important in the experience of savouring a dish. This is because before we taste a food, we come into contact with its smell.
In fact, as we bring the fork close to our mouth, we inevitably smell the scent of our bite. This is very important because the smell of a food can evoke so many feelings and memories in us. For example, it can remind us of our favourite childhood dish or the smell of grandma's kitchen on a Sunday morning.
The smell of the place is also important. The restaurant or bar where we taste these foods should have a neutral smell or a very very faint scent. This is because it must be pleasant but not overpower the taste.
Hearing
Who is not familiar with the crunchy sound of bread? Or the sound of vegetables sizzling in the frying pan? Or the sound of the rolling pin flattening a pizza dough?
In the culinary field, hearing is a sense that is often underestimated. This is a common mistake because the sensory experience of eating should be able to involve all the senses, both outside (from the ambience) and inside (from our sensations)
For example, if inside sounds or noises may bring back past memories of something good we had eaten, outside we may be bothered by very crowded rooms with lots of people chatting or restaurants with very noisy kitchens. Certainly both the atmosphere of the place and our personal sensations can influence our sensory experience positively or negatively.
Touch
Touch, like hearing, is a sense that takes second place in the culinary experience. But if we think about it, as children we learn to eat first with our hands and later with cutlery. This is because touch tells us a lot about the food we are going to taste: the consistency, temperature, texture, etc.
If we really wanted to have a complete sensory experience, it would be necessary to eat with our hands. There are foods that we commonly eat with our fingers, such as hamburgers, pizza, fries, etc. Let's take the example of eating a slice of pizza. By first taking it in our hands, we can appreciate the warmth of the pizza fresh out of the oven. Then we can notice its softness, which is usually an indication of good leavening. And so automatically combining the concept of warmth with that of softness, our mouths water!
This is because touch allows us to pre-taste the food we are approaching our mouths.
Many advertisements play on the sense of touch such as the advertisement for Fonzies (Italy). The marketing campaign for this brand of chips created the slogan “If you don't lick your fingers, you only half-taste” . This was because they wanted to exploit the fact that the taste of the chips remained all on our fingers while eating them. Surely this is a good way to emphasise touch and taste over the other senses.
Taste
Central to the culinary experience is the sense of taste. Indeed, taste guides the whole journey that starts on the plate and continues in the mouth.
In the mouth, the tongue is able to perceive different tastes, thus we distinguish 5 main tastes:
sweet, characteristic of foods rich in carbohydrates and therefore synonymous with energy, we perceive it at the tip of the tongue
salty, fundamental for our brain, we feel it in the first part of the tongue
acid, for example from citrus fruits such as lemon or grapefruit, we find it in the second part of the tongue
bitter, such as that of rocket or coffee, is perceived in the final part of the tongue, the one near the throat
umami, the last taste discovered, is typical of savoury foods and is central on the tongue
Of course, taste can be experienced in our kitchens, but especially in restaurants, where there are people who have studied special combinations precisely to fascinate our palates. So a consumer after entering the restaurant, seeing the ambience, being immersed in the atmosphere, sits down ready to enjoy his dish. Taste is the culmination of the culinary experience.
An example of how taste has been used in marketing could be Milka's “A Chain of Tenderness” campaign. In this campaign, machines were installed that distributed chocolates. In fact, in addition to wanting to connect people, Milka wanted to make them taste the product directly. Thus it succeeded in creating in the consumer's mind the link tenderness-sweet-chocolate-Milka.
Being able to create this kind of brand-related memory makes the marketing strategy successful.
A Journey into Ourselves
In an era when customer experience has become the very heart of marketing strategy, engaging the five senses represents a unique opportunity for restaurateurs to create deep and memorable connections with their guests. The smell of a freshly served dish, the atmosphere created by light and music and the texture of the food on the palate can transform a simple dinner into a journey into ourselves capable of awakening emotions and memories.
In this way, the restaurant is no longer just a place to eat, but becomes a space where stories are told, our stories. And it is there that the true value of the gastronomic experience is born.
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