Unlocking NGO Success: The Strategic Role of Multisensory Marketing in A Dynamic Global Environment

Abstract

The current living paradigm is significantly different than it was a four years ago. There are various reasons for this. One reason was the pandemic, another was the global fiscal crisis, the Ukraine war, and Israel - Palestine war. All these circumstances contributed to the enhancement of an already existing global and ethical crisis. This overall societal crisis has created various problems such as the struggle for survival and for success for many businesses and even more for NGOs (Prasad, 2020; Lins & Aquino, 2020; Laato et al., 2020; Tallon, 2020). NGOs are facing tremendous challenges especially since 2019, in the age where the consumer has so many alternatives but also financial difficulties. Hence, in a market overloaded with information and options for the consumer, there is a trend but also a need to view consumers from an experiential, hedonistic lens and to examine the role of emotion in regard to receiving aesthetically pleasing, satisfying, and hedonic experiences. That is very important, as the suffering loss of a valued consumer to a competitive business or organization, can have significant consequences on profitability and on survival. Both companies and non-profits must face the dynamism and competitiveness of today’s paradigm. Consequently, the trend is to shift the focus from consumer “acquisition” to consumer retention. Hence, the focus on the current living paradigm leads towards two words: satisfaction and engagement (Nikolinakou & King, 2018). It is crucial to understand how consumers behave and respond in relation to the reception of different stimuli, and in relation to how this affects consumer actions and decisions. In order to better stimulate consumers, it is important to comprehend the context in which the consumer exists. Thus, it is important to point out that the online environment and online buying, even before the pandemic, were already present and flourishing, due technology, social media and virtual reality and AI. This contributed to a big consumer shift towards online buying which altered the previous buying paradigm (Douce et al, 2022). As a result, there was already an increasing trend towards online buying, but since the pandemic appeared, almost everything turned online globally. This was something that had never happened before, and this changed completely how consumers act and behave. Hence, there is a new paradigm of consumer behavior which needs to be explored within the construct of SM, and it is necessary to identify how the valuable, promising but underexplored tool of SM can assist both consumers, companies, and NGOs, in order to communicate better and attain to their goals. Therefore, it is necessary to fill this gap first in knowledge and then apply findings into practice (Petit, 2019; Douce et al, 2022). As scholars’ point, there is an impending need to redefine online consumer behavior and to utilize sensory marketing optimally, aiming to comprehend the hedonic aspect of consumer behavior and to increase online consumer pleasure and satisfaction. Studying online and offline sensory marketing as separate research foci is essential for gaining a comprehensive understanding of how sensory cues influence consumer perceptions and emotions in different environments (Rathee & Rajain, 2017; Hussain, 2019; Petit et al., 2019; Worfel et al., 2022). The differences in sensory cues, contextual factors, and the increasing significance of online channels in marketing practice emphasize the need for separate examination of online and offline sensory marketing to advance the field of sensory marketing research. Therefore, online and offline sensory marketing, due to the different nature of sensory experiences in these environments should be studied separately. So far in the online environment there is still sensory deprivation which can limit the availability of sensory stimuli and impact consumer experiences, leading to the need to explore how sensory imagery can compensate for the lack of direct sensory experiences online. On the other hand, research in the offline environment has focused on understanding how actual sensory experiences can influence consumer perceptions, emotions, and behaviors (Hamacher & Buchkremer, 2022). Thus, NGOs need to transform their practices and use the valuable tools of Sensory marketing, so that they adjust to the new online paradigm, in order first to survive and then to thrive.