Did you know that 90% of brand building happens unconsciously? Turns out, you’re not forgettable because your logo sucks. You’re forgettable because you haven’t hacked your customer’s memory system. While everyone’s banging on about pretty colours and slick fonts, they’re completely missing how the human brain processes and stores brand information.
Ever had that moment when you come up with a brilliant idea, swear you’ll remember it, then completely lose it 30 seconds later? That’s exactly what’s happening to your brand in people’s minds. Your customers see you, maybe even like what they see, but then poof – you’re gone, like that genius idea you forgot to write down.
An important thing to know? Your brand is a memory. Full stop. It’s what lives rent-free in people’s heads long after they’ve stopped scrolling past your content. If you don’t understand how memory works, you’re throwing your marketing budget into a black hole of forgotten has-beens.
Your brain’s 4 step memory filter
Think about your last shopping trip. You probably walked past hundreds of products but only remember a handful. That’s because your brain has a brutal filtering system designed to protect you from information overload.
Research shows that 90% of our decisions are made unconsciously. We think we’re in complete control of what our brain processes, but that’s total bullshit. Your brain is constantly filtering information behind the scenes, deciding what gets remembered and what gets tossed.
Here’s how your customer’s memory filter works:
- Exposure: Just being present isn’t enough. Studies show it takes 5-7 brand impressions before someone even recognises you. This is why consistency matters so much – if you keep changing how you look and sound, you’re resetting that counter every time.
- Attention: Once you’re exposed, you need to grab attention. This is where visual processing kicks in (which makes up 50% of brain activity). Colour, movement, contrast, and unexpected elements are tools to pattern interrupt and make people see you.
- Interpretation: Now your customer’s brain tries to make sense of what they’re seeing. This is where inclusivity in design becomes crucial. Different brains process information differently (think dyslexia), so your message needs to be clear enough that anyone can get it.
- Memory: If you make it through these 3 filters, congrats – you’ve reached short-term memory! But here’s the kicker, short-term memory only holds about 6-8 things at once, and they only last about 30 seconds before they’re either discarded or moved to long-term storage.
The goal of brand building is to bypass the temporary holding zone of short-term memory and get firmly lodged in long-term memory, the place where purchase decisions happen.
How sensory branding hacks memory
If I said “apple” right now, what happens in your brain? You might visualise the fruit, hear the crunch of biting into it, taste its sweetness, or feel its smooth skin. That’s because memory isn’t just visual, it engages all your senses.
Smart brands know this and use sensory marketing to create deeper, more resilient memories:
- Sound: Think of TikTok’s distinctive sound at the end of videos. That’s sonic branding, and it’s incredibly powerful. Music and jingles create emotional connections that can last decades (I bet you can still sing jingles from your childhood).
- Smell: Subway deliberately vents the smell of their bread outside stores, so you smell them before you see them. Lush’s powerful scent can be detected halfway across a shopping centre. Smell has the strongest connection to memory of all senses.
- Taste: Food brands rely heavily on distinctive flavours that become signature experiences. Think about how Coca-Cola tastes different from other colas, that’s by design.
- Touch: The weight of a product, the texture of packaging, the feel of materials – these tactile elements create memory markers that visual elements alone can’t match.
Why does this matter? When you engage multiple senses, you create redundant memory pathways. So, even if your customer forgets what your logo looks like, they might remember how your store smelled or the sound of your jingle, giving you multiple ways back into their memory.
Look at how Thank You has disrupted the soap market. They didn’t just create another soap; they tied their product to social impact, creating an emotional memory trigger that makes socially conscious consumers feel good about their purchase. That feeling becomes part of the memory of their brand.
So, here’s how you can do it.
Start by auditing your current brand touchpoints to see how many senses you’re engaging. Are you relying solely on visual elements, or are you creating multi-sensory experiences?
Also, simplify your messaging ruthlessly. If a child can’t understand what you’re saying, it’s too complicated. Every extra word dilutes the power of your message and makes it less likely to stick in memory.
Remember, your brand exists entirely in the memories of other people. And, those memories are formed through consistent, multi-sensory experiences, not just a nice logo and or fun colour palette.
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