Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
constantly, and our dieticians and trainers impose drinking water on us if they
have to. But how many of us view water drinking as a pleasurable experience?
I mean as an activity that we covet and desire so much that we cannot wait
to experience it. When you drink water, do you immediately start dreaming
of your next water-drinking experience? I'm pretty sure that you don't, just
like me. That is, until I came across a Spanish company called Water Way of
Life, which has eighteen prestigious water brands in their portfolio that grace
the tables of several luxury restaurants around the world. A quick visit to the
company's website revealed why they are successful. They have masterfully
created an entire universe around water and turned the simple activity of water
drinking into an art and a lifestyle. Their challenge to the conventional view of
bottled water has led them to create a unique atmosphere on their website that
uses visuals, colors, images, sound, movement and other interactive features to
create a distinctive online ambience that generates positive vibes and sensations
in the website visitor which arouse the desire to drink water. A look at this web-
site will change your perception of water (unless you're a Koala bear or some-
thing) and will provide you with a glimpse into what I'm about to discuss here.
You may have come across the Internet marketing term webmosphere,
a word that is derived from the combination of “web” and “atmosphere”,
which was highlighted in my previous topic,
Luxury Fashion Branding
.
As a reminder, it refers to the atmosphere on a website and is particularly
used in the context where a website has a distinctive ambience. As we all
know, the store atmosphere has been recognized as one of the key elements
of successful retailing, particularly in luxury, which explains why a lot of
attention is given to “atmospherics”. In the physical context, the majority of
luxury brands with retail points or client access locations are able to recreate
their store atmosphere to exude the feelings that they aim to be associated
with and to arouse certain desired effects in shoppers, in order to enhance
purchase probability. The common features that are used to manipulate the
atmosphere are colors, shapes, music, displays, layout, scents and aromas,
temperature and tactile feelings. Atmosphere appeals to the psychology and
emotions of shoppers through their subconscious, influences buying decisions
and enhances the relationships with brands and products.
In the virtual Internet context, the strategy of developing a specific atmos-
phere, i.e. the webmosphere, is known as webmospherics. The concept of
webmospherics, first brought into prominence by Lorna Chicksand of the
Birmingham Business School and Rachel Knowles of Brandscape during the
IBM e-business conference in 2002, became actively adopted during the second
phase of the Internet evolution when content was a main ingredient of website
creation. Webmospherics has itself evolved to become a crucial aspect of website
design strategy, particularly in the creation of an overall online brand experience.
Webmospherics is directly linked to the five human senses of sight, hear-
ing, smell, touch and taste through elements that are adapted to stimulating
positive sensations directly linked to these senses and subsequently leading
