What is Marketing Somatics?

Somatic marketing or marketing somatics relates to the use of somatic emotional identity as a basis for developing brand identity, advertising creative, designs packs, points of sale, websites and a variety of other marketing activities.

It has long been recognised that powerful brands give expression to personal identity. Recent research into personal identity using somatic metaphors is showing how somatic identity can help marketers connect at an emotional level and provide a basis for influencing customer predispositions and choices.

Marketing somatics aims to connect with the consumer at a deep emotional level through somatic metaphors. Somatic metaphors relate to all the senses though especially relate to movement and spatial orientation. They are integral to the effective practice of marketing somatics as they are linked very closely to the emotional states which drive behaviour as well as those self defining states that are integral to our identity .

Somatic metaphors connect people with their emotions because emotions are experienced in our bodies as bodily sensations and experiences and are mostly very inadequately represented in other ways.

Early in 2006, INSIDE STORY Knowledge Management started researching the new area of marketing somatics, seeking to identify codes that can be used to ‘talk’ to consumers at a deeply emotional level.

These codes are now being used as a basis for designing packs, websites, brands, ads and other activities.