Feel-good marketing: Understanding autonomous sensory meridian response and its online audience

Abstract

With autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) technologies being increasingly adopted to target audiences aged 18–25 years old — consumers with significant current and future buying power — there is an opportunity for marketers to incorporate such technology into their marketing strategies in order to showcase their brands and products from a sensory perspective, and evoke pleasurable sensory responses among their customers. By utilising ASMR in this manner, marketers can create stimuli that induce pleasant feelings, build brand favourability and subconsciously embed brand messages in the minds of potential customers. This paper identifies useful strategies for incorporating ASMR technologies in a relatively simple and cost-effective manner. It explores tactics such as non-disruptive advertising on popular ASMR channels, partnerships with popular ASMR influencers, providing products for video shoots, and embedding ASMR triggers in commercial advertisements to impact audiences at a subconscious level.