The first Sensory Marketing conference was held at the Ross School of Business, Ann Arbor. Michigan on
 June 19-21, 2008.  It was organized by Prof. Aradhna Krishna of the Ross School of Business, University
of Michigan. The objective for the conference was to get a core group of  researchers together to pioneer a
 new field within marketing.  While the term “Sensory Marketing” may show up in a Google search, it was
 not used to describe research on the various senses, even when it focused on highly sensory inputs and their
impact on the consumer – e.g., product color, advertiser’s speech characteristics, phonetic appeal of a brand
name, haptic qualities of products, ambient odor, or product taste.  The conference engaged marketing
researchers, experts from psychology on specific senses, and some practitioners, to share their knowledge and
expand the field as a whole.

 The conference was sponsored by the Ross School of Business, Marketing Science Institute, and the Yaffe
Center for Persuasive Communication. Three keynote speakers at the conference were Roberta Klatzky
(Professor of Psychology at CMU, an expert on haptics), Paul Rozin (Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn
Professor of Psychology at University of Pennsylvania; an expert on nutrition, sensation and perception)
and Rachel Herz (Visiting Prof. at the Brown University Medical School and an expert on smell).

Key people facilitating the conference were Joan Meyers-Levy, Maureen Morrin, Joann Peck,
Laura Peraccio, and Priya Raghubir.