- Past Event Highlights
- Article
Know Your Meme – Sensory Memetics & Audience Engagement
Allison Gutkowski – Director of Global Research, HCD Research
Michelle Niedziela, Ph.D. – VP of Research & Innovation, HCD Research
Allison Gutkowski and Michelle Niedziela of HCD Research covered unique approaches to increasing consumer engagement and introduced the concept of sensory memetics, which they describe as an approach to curating it. They also shared their thoughts on identifying consumer habits and lifestyle and incorporating these with sensory profiling to make them more meaningful. Moreover, utilizing new technologies, like ChatGPT, can offer new product ideas and social media marketing messages that evoke brand harmony and are more engaging. They also dove into the theoretical drivers behind behaviors that either spell engagement or ad avoidance and where the line is between authenticity and distrust due to sponsorship.Key Takeaways
- More bridges should be made between R&D and marketing to inform better on consumer’s lifestyle and find ways to become a part of it.
- Sensory profiling and cross-modal associations (i.e., a picture of a rubber ball you can hear in your memory) can improve the product experience and social media messaging about the product.
- It’s important to embody brand harmony and that all aspects meet consumer expectations.
- Tools like ChatGPT can help create and test novel flavors and nuanced product possibilities, as well as conjure unique messaging ideas for social.
- Design Fiction or a closed social media feed can be used to test messaging.
- More and more sensory people are being hired to work at brands.
