It’s no surprise that marketers look to storytelling to captivate their audiences – not just visually, but through the other senses as well. A notable example would be Hennessy XO’s collaboration with director Ridley Scott, where creative freedom depicted Scott’s interpretation of the layers behind the premium cognac. As you’d expect from the legend who directed the Blade Runner and Alien series, the cinematography, sound-design and scriptwriting all came together to tell a cohesive story that tickles the senses.
As copywriters, we don’t have access to the tools of a Hollywood director. Instead, we have to rely on words to metaphorically paint our stories, orchestrate the accompanying soundtracks and just about everything else in between. Interested in learning more about multi-sensory copywriting to expand your linguistic arsenal? Read on…
Ridley Scott’s Seven Worlds depicts Hennessy’s XO through an alluring medley of stunning visuals, ear-tingling sound effects and textures – all intertwined into a creative narrative that caters to the senses.
You’ve got the touch
There’s no denying that sight is the star child amongst the siblings of the five senses. An incredible picture (be it something you can see physically or a thought conjured up using vivid descriptions) creates a truly unforgettable experience. If you’ve ever picked up one of George R.R. Martin’s books from the Game of Thrones series, you’ll know the incredible lengths that he can go to in illustrating a scene – sometimes dedicating pages to describe the state of a room.
While words depicting amazing visuals will always be showstoppers, vision is the youngest of the siblings and is the most vulnerable to change. In our infancy, our ability to see is the last sense to develop, and as adults, it’s one of the first senses to deteriorate. Without sight, we rely on our eldest and most reliable sense – touch.
When we think about the sense of touch in writing, we automatically think about things we can grasp with our hands or feel with our skin. For example, compare the prickly sting of a scorching sun to the generic it is hot. Heat being a discomfort that most people have endured before, the former simply tells a more detailed and relatable story.
Apart from what we’ve experienced before, touch can also be used as a tool for evoking empathetic and emotional responses. Consider this article by David Chitty where he quotes author E.B. White’s Once More to the Lake:
“I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death.”
Regardless whether we’ve experienced the above or not, White pens a rather unpleasant ordeal to share his character’s emotions with us – helping us better understand the suffering of the unfortunate wretch and to sympathise with him. “Not only does this create a more robust picture of the situation or characters, it does a lot of work towards creating a more robust piece of writing as a whole,” explains Chitty.
A taste for details
The Italians (and many other cultures) believe that food brings people together. This was especially the case for America following the tragedy of the 9-11 attacks. According to celebrity chef Alton Brown, the morale and mood of the country at the time was understandably abysmal. With most television shows doing little to lift spirits, food network show hosts (like Paula Deen and Rachael Raye) were saviours that guided viewers’ attention elsewhere.
Anyone can write about food, but you have to truly love your topic for your writing to shine. To better illustrate the intricacies of good food writing, who better to consult than Anthony Bourdain – the chef-writer-turned-travel-documentarian.
An excerpt from Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown of the documentarian enjoying street fare in Vietnam. A large part of Bourdain’s success is attributed to his charming personality, clever writing (he’s a writer on the show as well) and his unabashed attitude towards saying “I’m not exactly sure what it is”.
We’re naturally drawn towards adjectives when describing food, and like most OpenRice reviewers or self-proclaimed Instagram foodies, we use generic terms such as mouth-watering, delicious and juicy. However, unless our readers have personally eaten the food before, it’s hard for them to imagine what it would taste like based off of these terms alone – given that taste is highly subjective and individual.
“You don’t have to go into detail about the actual taste of something to illicit a response from the reader. Just the mention of foodstuffs can bring about the desired response from your reader,” explains Chitty in another article. Charming and eloquently sassy, Bourdain’s writing rejects such excessively used adjectives and looks to another direction to create empathetic associations with readers. Consider this excerpt from a distinguished piece he wrote for The New Yorker on the importance of butter:
“In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything… In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter. Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan…”
Rather than trying to explain how the food tastes with the addition of butter, Bourdain describes how butter is used in the preparation of food. Although the taste of a well-cooked piece of fish is subjective, how it is seared and basted is much less so. Anything cooked in butter and fats develop a lovely sheen that adds to its presentation and overall texture, so to compare a regular piece of cooked fish with a butter-seared fish is night and day – and he knew it.
Although Bourdain is no longer with us, his philosophies on life, travel and food inspired a new generation of writers. To commemorate his grand legacy and celebrate his brilliance in writing, we end with one of his most memorable quotes from Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly:
“Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed pope-mobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafés and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”
Touch and taste make little appearance in modern copywriting when compared to sight, but we hope that this article has helped you see the strength they can put forth. For more on how to develop your writing on sight, hearing and smell, stay tuned!