LONDON (March 18, 2013) – JWT has joined-up with world-renowned experimental psychologist, Professor Charles Spence, who is based at the University of Oxford. This is the first time he has
formed a strategic alliance with an advertising agency.
The move headlines JWT’s continuing commitment to innovation and is designed to enhance the agency’s expertise in new product development and marketing strategy.
Spence is taking up the position of Head of Sensory Marketing at JWT. He will work with the agency’s client portfolio on different approaches within sensory marketing. His research focuses on how a greater understanding of the human senses can help enhance the design of products, services, stores, interfaces and working spaces.
Over the years, Spence has advised multinational companies, including Unilever, Toyota, Starbucks, VF Group, and Nestlé, on various aspects of multisensory design, branding, and communication. Spence works with Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal on the design of dishes that more effectively stimulate the senses. He is also the Professor in Residence at London’s new experiential dining restaurant ‘The House of Wolf’.
Toby Hoare, CEO of JWT Europe, said: ‘We are looking forward to working with Charles and his research lab to further develop and innovate our thinking and output with JWT's clients. He brings something different and increasingly relevant.’
Christophe Cauvy, European Head of Digital & Innovation at JWT, commented: ‘We will collaborate with Charles and the research lab on a multitude of projects with our clients at various stages: everything from the texture of the packaging through to the colours used in marketing communications, and from the fragrance associated with products or shops, through the sound or music associated with purchase intents. In addition, as an academic, Charles brings his scientific expertise and experimental skills and will help us provide a truly innovative and wider offering to our clients.’
Prof. Spence added: ‘This partnership is particularly exciting because it offers the opportunity to apply the latest insights from the emerging field of neuroscience to the real world in ways that are likely to be experienced by a very large number of people.’
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For more information contact:
JWT London
Lucy Barrett
Email – lucy.barrett@jwt.com
Tel – 020 7656 7188
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Charles Spence
Professor Charles Spence is the head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory based at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University. He is interested in how people perceive the world around them. In particular, how our brains manage to process the information from each of our different senses (such as smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch) to form the extraordinarily rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives. His research focuses on how a better understanding of the human mind will lead to the better design of multisensory foods, products, interfaces, and environments in the future. His research calls for a radical new way of examining and understanding the senses that has major implications for the way in which we design everything from household products to mobile phones, and from the food we eat to the places in which we work and live.
Spence has been awarded the 10th Experimental Psychology Society Prize, the British Psychology Society: Cognitive Section Award, the Paul Bertelson Award, recognising him as the young European Cognitive Psychologist of the Year, and the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany. He was also awarded the 2008 IG Nobel prize for nutrition, for his ground-breaking work on the ‘sonic crisp’. He has published 7 books and more than 450 academic papers over the last decade.
