Neuroaesthetics of Brand Experience

This unit examines how sensory cues, memory structures, social identity, and emotion drive attention, memorability, and virality in digital products and marketing. Students synthesize neuroAI-informed principles to evaluate and design multi-sensory brand experiences that build loyalty and prepare for a culminating design or implementation project in the final unit.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze how sensory modalities (visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile), episodic and procedural memory, and social identity mechanisms contribute to brand memorability and consumer behavior, producing a written analysis with evidence-based examples from at least four lesson topics
• Apply neuroaesthetic and ritual-design principles to create a multi-sensory prototype (packaging, voiceover, scent cue, or interaction flow) that leverages the rule of threes, personalization, and spatial/episodic cues to increase recall and emotional engagement
• Evaluate marketing and design choices for memorability and potential virality using measurable criteria (e.g., mu score proxy, attention salience, emotional valence, and shareability) and produce a prioritized list of recommended refinements
• Design a coherent brand-extension or community-building strategy that aligns sensory design, social identity benefits, and habit-forming rituals, and present a 5-7 minute pitch that justifies choices with neuroAI-informed rationale