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Brands want their customers to love them—such is the challenge of digital marketing. Yet companies lack the ability to run fingers through their hair or use other seduction techniques traditionally reserved for human interaction.

Haptic Technology adds the sense of touch to the digital experience by supplying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. This extra dimension of feedback is a trend worth examining cat close range as the new technology becomes more widespread and consumers need more than a clever slogan to feel adored.

You may already know Haptic feedback from the vibrations of video game controllers or your phone. However, the additional ability to deliver very specific experiences to wearable devices will add immersive opportunities to books and magazines. Sensory Fiction, as invented by the MIT Media Lab, is just such a wearable book that uses networked sensors and actuators to mimic the characters’ emotions and physical states through discrete tangible feedback.

Readers perceive the sci-fi tale through programmable glowing LEDs that create ambient light based on the specific page.  A personal heating device, secured at the collarbone that changes skin temperature, vibrates to influence heart rate and has a compression system to convey tightness or loosening through pressurized airbags.

““Into the Frame’ on display at Red Gallery in London allows visitors to virtually “hear” and “feel” the painting. The futuristic installation allows viewers (or rather, experiencers) to immerse themselves through touch and sound, extending well past the typical visual art experience.

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It won’t be long before the adult industry catches on to the groundbreaking technology and we start giving each other virtual hugs.  More importantly, the high production value of commercials will allow us to experiment with the ability to touch and feel.  Soon, we’ll be able to experience the sensation a puppy’s lick in a dog food commercial!