Reaction paper Designing events for five senses
Introduction
What is the video about?
In the video ‘’What designing events for the five senses means’’ explains Barry Ross Rinehart how the use of the five senses can affect the experience of an event. Barry Ros Rinehart is an Executive Creative Director at Multi Image Group. In the video he says that they think of there self as architects and builders of a 360-degree immersive and transformational experiences. The video is about the use of the five senses during an event. He gives different kind of examples of how the senses can be used and how it can affect an event/ experience.
Relevance to study unit
It was already mentioned that this video is about the use of the five senses during an experience. Maybe this video isn’t the most relevant to this course. Still, this can be used in marketing and ecommerce. You can try to activate multiple senses during marketing. So, to try to stimulate different senses while marketing a product. This way maybe the target group will remember your marketing better and eventually it can lead to the desired action.
Arguments
Barry mentioned in his talk that it is important when organising an event, you need to think about emotions and senses working together. For this he gave an example about an event he went to. The event was good organised and got all the senses right. The only thing they forgot was the emotion in the event. The speaker that gave his speech spoke at the audience like he was trying to sell a brochure. They forgot to make the event emotional as well. Therefore, it is so important to combine the senses and emotions all together. I think that mixing the senses and emotions is an important part of an event/ experience. When adding some emotion in your event, for example this can be in a speech, music, photo’s etc, you make it more personal. The adding of emotions can make a difference in how the visitor experience it. The visitor can maybe relate to it or can be touched by it. This can lead to that he/she will remember it better and can give a personal touch.
Another thing that Barry spoke about is how we can activate our senses and what kind of influence that has on remembering something. He talked about when we hear something only 20 percent will be remembered. That is why audio visual is so important. If we add a third sense the percentage will improve even more. When adding a third sense there is a 70 percent increase on the brand impact. If you really want that something will be remembered add a third sense. Another way to stimulate our senses is using story telling. This is because by using story telling we are activating different parts in the brain, which makes it able to remember it better. In my opinion both these ideas are a good way to activate our senses and to remember things better. For example, when I try to remember something from a text it helps me to read it aloud. Here I combine two senses, so I think if you add one more sense you will even remember it better. Adding story telling will probably also improve how much someone remembers from an experience. The use of story telling can trigger some memories a person already has. Which he or she can use to remember it better.
Barry also talked about depriving senses. He gave an example of his own experience where he went to a dark restaurant. In that restaurant everything was completely dark. He experienced that it really made you focus on the sounds, aromas and the flavours in an unique way. There are many unique and creative ways to deprive people from particularly senses. This can lead to an experience with a state of mindfulness. I think that the use of depriving senses is a good, new and creative way of activating the senses. When you deprive one particular sense you start to focus more on the senses that you can use during the experience. This creates an unique and memorable experience.
Conclusion
The main result of this video is how much influence your senses have on the remembering of an experience. Personally, I didn’t realise how much of a difference a good use of our senses and emotions can have on an experience. I learnt from this video that there are many ways to activate our senses to benefit an experience and how important it is that we involve the senses. I hope that with this knowledge I will notice in my next experience if they involve the senses and how they do that.
Bibliography
BizBash. (2020, February 27). Event Innovation Forum 2015: What Designing Events for the Five Senses Means [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqCSo4T8FoM&t=950s