According to Thule Ngcese, Creative Partner, Distrikt 9 (a VML supplier development partner), AI is giving us flawless sunsets, flawless skin, flawless everything. But when perfection becomes the norm, it stops being a differentiator.

Humans were never built to experience the world through sight alone. We have four other senses waiting to get back in the game. In 2026, brands must make people feel (and hear and smell) something, not just look at it.

Why Multisensory Marketing Matters In 2026

Audiences are visually overstimulated, scrolling past thousands of images per day, each more spectacular than the last. But while visual burnout is real, brands have more tools available to them that have the potential to be even more powerful than an awe-inspiring image.

Emotion lives beyond sight: smell triggers memory. Sound shapes mood. Touch shifts perception. Taste anchors experience. Brands that activate multiple senses unlock instinctive, emotional, and longer-lasting connections.

What’s more, audiences are hungry for it. After years of digital polish, people crave texture, authenticity, and brand experiences that feel lived rather than manufactured.

Sound As A Story

Sound is the fastest way to build emotion, through radio, sound design, voice, ambient texture or even silence, you can craft rich worlds using audio.

One example is a campaign for a refreshed version of Wheel of Fortune South Africa, reintroducing the beloved TV show to a mass-market audience on the national broadcaster.

The radio campaign tapped into the scepticism around people who suddenly come into money, playfully referencing money snakes and wealth rats from local stories. The rumours were contrasted with the real opportunity offered by Wheel of Fortune South Africa.

The message was simple: no myth and no magic, just the thrill of spinning the wheel and getting lucky. The key was in the execution. To ground the work in culture, we crafted an authentic Maskandi sound with Umlabalaba. It was important for this not to be a hollow parody of the genre, the song had all the hallmarks of Maskandi. But we used the sound to carry narratives of rich hate, community envy, and sudden change in a way that felt true to how South Africans talk, gossip, and share news.

Physical Experiences That Live In Memory

When people physically engage with an execution, it tends to cement itself in their minds much more securely than something they saw on their feeds while scrolling.

That principle was to promote the launch of Showmax Original Ubuthe Uzobuya, a gripping intervention show that exposes the painful reality of spousal abandonment in South Africa.

The streets of Johannesburg are plastered with lost lover posters. This formed the perfect backdrop for a tactile execution deeply rooted in the lived experience of commuters in the city. ‘The Ubuthe Uzobuya Bring Back Lost Lover Collection’ was created, a set of bottled love potions designed to look and feel like the promises found on lost lover posters and handed out at traffic lights.

Each potion carried a story inspired by the emotional chaos of abandonment:

– Phupha Ngami: Dream of me.
– Futha Azabuye: Steam to make him return.
– Duka Nezwe: Wander off and never return.
– Bheka Mina Ngedwa: Have eyes only for me.
– Forever Makhwapheni: Stay as their side chick forever.

The back labels revealed the truth: ‘If only it were this easy. Watch Ubuthe Uzobuya.’ By tapping into a real cultural truth, the campaign became a physical experience people could see, touch, and remember.

Taking Multisensory Experiences Digital

Even digital spaces can go beyond purely visual appeal. Spatial audio, haptics, ASMR textures, ambient sound beds, POV formats, and location-based triggers are all ways to bring the user experience to life in ways that engage other senses.

Specsavers showed how effective this can be in a campaign titled ‘The Misheard Version’. It used digital audio to create the sensation of hearing loss by recording a version of Rick Astley’s classic, Never Gonna Give You Up, with the lyrics intentionally changed to mimic the mishearing that occurs during early hearing loss.

The track lived across radio, streaming, smart speakers, and social audio, turning a familiar song into a moment of confusion and self-reflection. It won a Grand Prix and Gold in the Audio and Radio category at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity in 2024.

The Rise Of Synaesthetic Brands

The next era of creativity belongs to synaesthetic brands that behave like experiences rather than assets. In 2026, brands must not only focus on being seen but also being heard, felt, remembered, and instantly recognised without a single pixel on screen.

They Should Be Thinking Of:

• Sound signatures that become as iconic as logos.
• Multisensory retail built on temperature, scent, and texture.
• Spatial audio storytelling that creates emotional depth.
• Haptic cues that make mobile content feel alive in the hand.
• Tactile activations that move seamlessly between physical and digital worlds.
• AI-powered sensory layering where sound, motion, and micro textures build richer brand worlds.

Multisensory marketing is a return to human truth. We remember what we feel and not what we scroll past.

DISTRIKT 9
https://www.d-9.co.za/