I'd venture to say that most of us will only use the senses that are required for us to review the item at hand. Which means most of us are living or experience the world by what others dictate to us, versus what could be experienced.
Take for example, a normal online banner ad. Let me go to CNN.com and review the first banner I see:
How many senses am I using to experience this Visa Black Card ad? One, sight. I'm not hearing anything along with this ad. I don't smell anything. I can't taste anything, and I can't touch anything unless I'm using an iPad or Tablet. So Visa is satisfied with trying to capture my attention through only one sense.
How could Visa potentially add additional sensory experiences to their ad? Here are just a few examples that come to mind: Adding the sound from their TV ad, smelling the nail polish or the burnt rubber from the bike (there must be ways of doing this), using a scene that brings in exquisite taste like eating luxury, and lastly being interactive allowing for touch to unlock a new experience.
One of the greatest masters of his own senses was Leonardo Da Vinci who reflected that the average human "looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour or fragrance, and talks without thinking."
I invite each of you to improve your use of our senses, so you can truly engage with our minds and help us experience what's possible.
Do you believe that users would think it's weird to have those other senses come in? I've heard that in other countries they are starting to experiment with smells such as having coffee ads inside of a bus and releasing the smell of coffee inside the bus.
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