We are gaining insight into how drinking is a multisensory experience that goes far beyond sensations on the tongue. Sight, sound, touch, and smell are just as important to engage our emotions and influence our purchasing behavior. Enter the multisensory experience.

The experience economy has been tipped to be the next trend in drinks marketing. With an almost endless stream of new products and brand information, it’s little wonder consumers are left feeling a bit overwhelmed. In an effort to break through the marketing clutter and connect with consumers in a meaningful way, the increasingly high-tech world of sensory marketing is becoming big business. From virtual reality goggles and interactive tours to aroma labs and gin suites, brands are creating entire immersive experiences designed to appeal to all the senses.

Technology has kicked open the doors for brands to deliver previously impossible experiences to consumers. The Macallan Distillery, one of Scotland’s purveyors of fine whisky since 1824, has launched a reality experience at its state-of-the-art $186 million distillery. An interactive tour takes visitors through the six pillars of the whisky-making process, from field to bottle. Visitors enter a cube-like room containing a glass wall of 840 archived Macallan bottles from Victorian times to the present. Each bottle has its own digital file (accessible via a touchscreen) with 360-degree photos, in-depth specs, and video content. The experience includes cutting-edge wind and scent diffusion technology matched to the footage. There’s also a barrel room, where guests can whiff various cask types from American bourbon-seasoned to Spanish sherry, to understand the flavors each imparts. There’s also a taste component, where visitors get a quarter ounce glass of either The Macallan’s newly released Edition No. 4 or Double Cask 12 Years Old.

Looking for new experiences, consumers are showing a greater desire to try and test products that connect with their individuality and tell their story in a more meaningful way. Patrón Tequila has tapped into this desire, pushing the marketing envelope and using a combination of mobile, virtual reality, and multisensory concepts to educate and engage its consumers. The Art of Patrón Virtual Reality Experience, featuring Oculus technology, takes consumers through an immersive Hacienda tour. Participants take the viewpoint of a bee (Patrón’s logo) and witness the tequila-making process at Patrón’s distillery in Mexico that begins in the agave fields and showcases the sights and sounds of production, aging, and bottling.

London-based food architects Bompas & Parr have blurred the boundaries between flavor and culinary research and art installation. They brought a theatrical dimension to Johnnie Walker Blue Label in the form of a church organ, dubbed The Flavour Conductor, where notes and melodies corresponded with smells, tastes, and flavors. For Diageo’s Guinness Storehouse, which has attracted more than 12 million visitors since opening in 2000, they designed a multisensory tasting room consisting of a series of chambers. The duo worked with master brewer Fergal Murray and flavor scientists to define which factors enhanced taste perception, and then created flavor fountains that produced vapors of beer, malt, roasted barley, and hops—all key tastes in Guinness.

For a pop-up event for Singleton Whisky, Bompas & Parr combined science with a sensual experience to highlight how environment can bring out the best in a spirit—in this case, The Singleton of Glendullan 12 year old single malt Scotch whisky. Bringing a 3D map of Scotland to life, the team put together a spectacular show of atmospheric sounds, smells, and visuals that took participants through the Scottish Highlands.

This past summer, Schiphol and Auckland airports not only greeted passengers with scented vapor bubbles, they immersed them into the English countryside with bird songs and the sound of gentle streams, all courtesy of Bombay Sapphire Gin. People were invited to create their own perfect Bombay Sapphire cocktail in the glass dome pop-up, using tonic twists and atomized spritz options, including citrus, spice, and floral flavors. Slingsby Gin partnered with Hotel du Vin to create gininspired hotel suites. Each suite contained a grapefruit tree, one of the main botanicals in Slingsby’s gin, along with hanging sky planters and vintage suitcases filled with herbs and copper details. The spectacle of all gin spectacles, however, belonged to Hendrick’s Gin with its E.L.E.V.A.T.U.M., a fully integrated multisensory experience. The event was launched at the 2018 Festival International de Jazz de Montreal and consisted of a cucumber jazz organ, teacup Gin & Tonic tastings, and to top it off, energy readings from renowned intuitive specialist Terri-Lynn Decker.

As the venerable Chinese philosopher Confucius reminds us, “When I hear, I forget. When I see, I remember. When I do, I understand.” It’s why the experience economy and multisensory marketing is here to stay, and will only continue to grow bigger and more spectacular as brands seek to stand out from the crowd and we continue to crave memorable experiences.

Colleen Thompson