Why scent

Our most powerful memories are those tied to our sense of smell, which makes olfactory marketing the final frontier for
businesses looking for a competitive edge. Scent is the most powerful way to connect on emotional and memorable levels with
your customers. We have used scent in our homes and lives for millennia and businesses are just starting to tap into this
awesome power. ScentAir is the global leader in olfactory (scent) marketing. We add more to your customer experience
through the power of scent.

In the world of marketing, businesses have essentially made use of every sensory avenue they could think of,
from sight to sound to touch, to convince customers to buy their product or to create a positive brand image.
One of the less travelled avenues that are gathering traffic today is the olfactory kind, and retailers all over the
world are trying to find that perfect smell of success to boost their sales. However, the business of scent
marketing is much more complex than that, as we will soon find out.
Why does scent work so well?

The fact that scent has been so under-used in the world of marketing is surprising, since the science of smell
suggests it is probably more effective than all the other senses it employs. In simple terms, when we get a whiff
of something, the smell is transmitted to and interpreted by the olfactory bulb which is part of the limbic
system. This part of our brain is also responsible for memory and emotion, which means we link smell with
pleasant or unpleasant experiences instantaneously, bringing subconscious levels of strong nostalgia. This is why
we associate certain smells from the beach or a resort we stayed in with good times and pleasant vacation
memories.

Our other senses such as sight, sound, taste, or touch can also trigger memories and emotion but not as
instantaneously. This is due to the fact that they travel to the cognitive receptors of the brain and thus, we can
apply some conscious reasoning to these. Since smell works on such a subconscious level, it is more effective in
triggering an impulsive reaction from buyers.

This is the reason why more and more businesses are rushing towards scent as a way of branding and marketing
their products. A story in Times Magazine reports predictions by a consulting firm based in New York, which
states that expenditures on scent marketing spanned between $50m and $80m last year, and this number is
anticipated to rise above $500m in the next 10 years.

Types of scent marketing

Scent marketing has different uses for different business, and so can be effectively divided into four distinct
types. There is the Aroma Billboard Smell, which makes the boldest scent statement and is the most “there”,
that is, the customers are consciously aware of it, such as the trademark smell of freshly brewed coffee at
Starbucks. The smell is part of the customer experience and it is what consciously attracts them.

On the other hand, a Thematic Smell complements the décor or purpose of the place, such as vanilla or lavender
smells at a beauty spa or a resort. Ambient Smells are more subtle and create an atmosphere, used to cover
unpleasant odours or to “fill a void”. Lastly, a Signature Smell is exclusive to a big brand name and is used to
create a brand image; customers associate this smell with their favourite brand and what it represents, such as
the smells of cardamom and ivory used by the high-end shoe brand Jimmy Choo to emanate wealth and luxury.

The benefits to using scent in marketing

Scents can help boost sales

We’ve already discussed some of the benefits; it can trigger instant emotional reactions from customers. Scent
marketing can thus be very effective in boosting sales. A study done by Nike discovered that they could increase
the intent to purchase by 80% through the introduction of scent into their stores. Another survey at a petrol
station with a mini-mart reported that the aroma of coffee helped boost sales of the beverage by a whopping
300%.
Scents make customers linger

Scents can also help customers linger in a store and look around more. Eric Spangenberg, the dean of the
College of Business at Washington State University, was the first to look for scientific evidence of this in 1996
through a lab study in Pullman. He found subjects were more likely to look around and browse through products
in the rooms that were scented, and reported more positive opinions and a tendency to wait longer in lines in
the fake store than its unscented counterpart.
Scents help create brand image

Scents are helpful in making people remember you, or to create associations in their minds. This is why it can be
useful it creating an all rounded brand image, such as the above Jimmy Choo example. Many hotels also use
scents to make people associate them with good memories, such as the Westin Hotels’ use of a blend of green
tea, geranium and black cedar diffused into their lobbies, according to the New York Times’ Key Magazine. The
scent you use will obviously go with the image you want for your brand, whether it is luxury, comfort, quaint
and old-fashioned or modern and contemporary.
Scents create a perception of quality

In general scents can also help create a perception of quality. Customers tend to perceive a scented product or
space as being of better quality and will be willing to pay more when shopping in a scented store, as discovered
by a study done by the Smell & Taste Research Foundation. Many of the subjects in the study reported that they
were willing to pay 10$ more for Nike sneakers placed in scented rooms, than those placed in an unscented one.

The downside to using scents for marketing

On the other hand, scenting a space can also go horribly wrong. Using scent is much more tricky and complex
than using music or visuals. A Wal-Mart in north Spokane had to be evacuated and one person even ended up in
the hospital when an “unidentified odour” wafted out of the bathrooms and gave many shoppers headaches
and dry mouth. Smells have the potential of creating unanticipated allergies in certain people, and in lesser
degrees can cause people to simply leave a space, something unlikely to happen with, say, a bad song.

Scents can be highly subjective

Businesses must also deal with the subjective nature of smells, according to Spangenberg. This makes using
smells highly risky and complex, especially when cultural appropriateness and gender come into play. Plus, scent
works great when it is congruent with the business it is promoting, but if not done right, it can actually hurt the
business more than when no scent is used. Spangenberg tested different smells to go with certain products. He
saw that in a clothing store, floral scents only attracted women and fewer men, while masculine smells of rose
maroc attracted more men and lesser women.
The kind of smell you use plays a huge role in the success of your campaign, Spangenberg suggests. His other
studies show that people are more likely to respond to what they expect. The smells of holiday spices or
chocolate chip cookies work better than ordinary, generic smells during Christmas, for example. In another
study he discovered that people are likely to spend 20% more in stores scented with simpler scents that they
could instantly process rather than more complex smells.
How businesses can make use of it

With all this information in mind, many businesses have been able to make use of scents to sell their products
more effectively. The key however, is to keep it natural, simple and diffuse, as overpowering and complex smells
can be distracting and actually have negative effects. Also, as Spangenberg discovered, the scent you use should
take into account your product and the gender, age, geography and culture of the target market. This is why
many businesses go to scent marketing consultants to develop a scent marketing strategy with a customized
and unique scent that would work for their business.

If we take the example of Cinnabon, we all love the smell of freshly baked Cinnabon, and this is always enticing
for anyone who loves cinnamon rolls. However, this is no accident, but an entire strategy according to the
President of Cinnabon, Kat Cole. The ovens are specifically placed at the front of the store the smell would waft
out and spread throughout the malls and airports where the stores are usually located. The ventilations systems
and oven covers used are also deliberately of lower quality, to help trap the sweet aromas in. Over here this
successful chain utilizes natural odours to draw in their customers and boost sales.

On the other hand, a similar business where food smells are used, artificial smells are created. The M&M World
store in Leicester Square, London stores pre-packaged goodies, and so utilized the services of a scent marketing
company to create a chocolate aroma diffused around the store.

Other companies may use various artificial smells in line with their brand image and products, as we saw in the
Jimmy Choo and Westin Hotels examples, or just as an ambient smell to create a pleasant atmosphere. This is
usually done by vaporizing the scent through “nebulisation technology” using high-voltage, low current
electricity. The dry vapour is then spread through the ventilation systems. I also know of one company here in
Australia that markets scent marketing using a battery powered automatic dispenser utilising a very fine mist.
This helps make the smell very subtle, working on a subconscious level and sort of becoming part of the
environment instead of being consciously there.

The Definitive Guide To Scent

Marketing
Relevant topics Archive, Strategy

 Neuromarketing Principle:

Scent marketing may be the most powerful next-gen weapon of influence.

 Application:

Various applications
 Smell. Isn’t it amazing how a dash of invisible scent molecules is able to
transport you right back into a childhood visit to your grandparents? Or how
the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread seems to lure you into that little
bakery around the corner – despite your strict low-carb diet? And everyone
recognizes that typical smell emanating from the box of your brand-new
phone or television.
Yes, scent is perhaps the most ancient and automatic way through which
humans make sense of the world. Needless to say our noses have captured
the attention of psychologists, neuroscientists and marketing researchers for
at least three decades now.
But research into scent marketing is no piece of cake, as delightful as that may
smell. In order to discover how smells shape our thoughts, emotions and
behavior, we need rigorous and carefully constructed scientific research – and
lots of it. Luckily, three UK scientists (Rimkute et al., 2016) recently dove into
every single study out there that connects smell to marketing. This guides
covers all topics out there:

1. How smell influences choice

2. How smell influences thoughts and emotions during shopping
3. How smell influences memory
4. Smellizing: how to create smells through words and images
5. Smell and awareness: does scent awareness reinforce or diminish its
effects?

I believe any retail marketer and brand manager brand worth her salt should
get acquainted with these fascinating insights.
Smell can make all the difference in marketing, often in unexpected ways. So
let’s take a deep breath and dig in.
1. How Smell Influences Choice: The Power Of Scent
Marketing
Many ‘traditional’ marketers still deem scent marketing as a fad, despite all the
evidence to the contrary. When it comes to consumer behavior, scents can
make a difference of night and day.
Generally speaking, a pleasant smell tickles the brain’s approach system,
which in turn starts a wide range of approach behaviors. As a result, enjoyable
scents attract more people into a store, make them spend more time in it
(while feeling like less!), stimulate to try and buy more different products and
make them spend more money, especially through impulse buying. The most
dramatic scent effect is perhaps illustrated by a field experiment in a casino,
which found that ambient scents made people throw in 45% more of their
hard earned dollars into the one armed bandits.

2. How Smell Influences Thoughts And Emotions During

Shopping
A pleasant smell makes people feel better. No surprise there.
Smell has been found to be the most emotionally jolting of all the senses.
Enjoyable odors make us feel better, which spills over directly into product
evaluation. Of course, odors that are deemed less pleasant have a strong
negative impact on people’s emotional state.
This raises the question what makes a smell either pleasant or unpleasant. For
a large part, this is determined by its intensity. Neutral smells become more
unpleasant as intensity increases. So for fairly neutral retail environments,
such as office and hardware stores, it’s best to minimize smell. However,
inherently pleasant scents (chocolate, fresh bread) are different: they each
show a sweet spot of optimal intensity. As soon as this sweet spot is
surpassed, event the most inherently pleasant smell becomes repelling.
Surprisingly, scents don’t only change how people feel, they even give a
powerful sway to what they think and how they process information. A
pleasant smell appears to turn on a switch in your brain that shifts your focus
to the positive aspects of your environment and blinds your from the negative.
The entire experience changes. A pleasant smell can transform a regular jeans
store into a premium boutique that has superior fabrics, better service, more
affordable prices – and hell, even your fellow shoppers appear more
attractive. Smell isn’t simply an after touch to spice up your retail environment
– it reshapes the entire customer experience.
In addition, scents can facilitate attention and processing of products, further
increasing the sales meter. For this to happen, it’s vital for the scent to not
only be pleasant, but also congruent with the shopping environment. While
the aroma of a freshly baked Italian pizza restaurant may be pleasant, it
certainly won’t facilitate deeper processing of a neighboring high-tech shop
due to a lack of congruency. If you want to benefit from the attention and
processing increasing effects of scents, it’s best to seek your pleasantness
close to your product.

3. How Smell Influences Memory: Make Your Brand

Unforgettable With Scent Marketing
We all know what it’s like when a scent automatically activates a deeply buried
memory of an earlier life episode, location or product. Especially with regard
to the latter, there are many techniques scent marketers can employ to
capture the consumer mind.
Scent acts as some sort of cerebral glue, associatively tying together all
thoughts and experiences pertaining to a brand. A simple everyday example:
the joy of a wonderful dinner in a restaurant is more likely to make you revisit
again two years later when the venue fans out the same scent on both
occasions. The scent allows for previous memories to be retrieved without
effort. The same goes for physical products: each positive (or negative)
experience with unpacking Apple products adds up to the same string of
memories, as each product has the same brand scent. Smart marketers can
take this principle one step further by aligning multiple marketing channels
with one consistent smell. By enhancing the store, packaging and even your
print ads with a unique brand scent, you create a seamless sensory
experience in which positive brand associations can easily come to mind. 

4. What If Your Marketing Channels Have No Scent?

In the age of the internet, the amount of consumer touch points with your
brand allowing for smell decreases. Does this mean that the science of scent
marketing is dying a premature death?
It doesn’t seem so. Recent research uncovered that ‘smellizing’, which is simply
asking someone to imagine the product’s smell, may be the same for a brain
as the experience of actual smells. In the case of delicious food, smellizing
beforehand led to physically greater salivation, more desire for food and
ultimately greater food consumption.
When all the weapons you have at your disposal are text and images, it’s
effective to indirectly try to make people think of the product’s smell.
Stimulate people to vividly imagine what it’s like to smell or taste the product.
In the case of foods, beverages, perfumes and detergents, it’s only natural to
describe how the product smells. But in the case of technology and fashion,
although they do have a powerful olfactory component, it would be downright
weird to describe the product smell in depth. These product categories beg for
clever copywriting and art direction, as well as some psychological dexterity, to
make it work. But the indirect ways to do that are numerous. In the case of a
TV commercial, a very short close-up of someone’s nose, naturally embedded
in the ad’s visual storyline, may be enough to trigger the scent department of
the brain.

5. Does Scent Awareness Kill Its Influence On Behavior?

For a long time, scientists were divided on the issue whether people’s
awareness of the smell mattered. On the one hand, some studies found that
people were only influenced by ambient scent when they didn’t take conscious
notice. On the other hand, other studies showed that smell influenced choice
and behavior regardless of people noticing it.
After analyzing 30 different studies using various settings and experimental
designs – from job applicants wearing perfume, to restaurants trying to attract
the outside crowds with spicy food scents – the jury is finally out. It appears
that awareness of the smell itself doesn’t have to be a bad thing (nor is it
good), but awareness of the underlying persuasive intent is. Because when
people feel someone is trying to influence their actions, they rely on harsh
defensive mechanisms. So try not to trigger people’s persuasion alarms by
hiding your scent nozzles in plain sights, or by using scent tactics that have
become well known by the general public. Otherwise, people will mentally
close their wallets and march out of the store – and sometimes literally so.

Scent marketing: What are brands looking

for?
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This post is sponsored by Rentokil Initial.

Did you know personalities can be represented by scents? A woman or a man chooses their
scent by choice and one will always has a favourite scent he or she would wear at any time of
the day. A scent is more than just a scent to wear when out. It is a fragrance that represents a
part of a person in an unspoken manner. It is an extension of the person’s personality.
While cosmetic fragrances have long been in the beauty and makeup market, through the
sense of smell, businesses have entered into an era of service and experience with a rising
need and demand to enhance brand image. Through scent marketing, various brands in hotel,
retail, recreational, food and beverages, or even car showrooms are looking to add a dimension
to their brand and engage their guests and users in the environment positively.

Scenting is a powerful trigger of emotions and memories amongst all our senses. 75% of the
emotions we generate daily are affected by smell. In a retail environment, 40% of customers
stay longer in a pleasantly scented environment. So what are some of the popular scents, who
do they represent and where can we use them for your business?

Type: Floral

Personality: Playful yet sweet, romantic, flirtatious and center of attraction

Notes: Rose, peonies, jasmine, freesia

Scent Choice: Green Tea

Location: Luxurious hotel

Type: Fresh

Personality: Fun loving, sporty, energetic, outgoing and refreshing

Notes: Citrus, green, watery, lemony, zesty, tangy, mandarin or grape fruit

Scent Choice: Pomegranate

Location: Sports gym

Type: Woody
Personality: Sensual, modern, warm and comfort, affectionate

Notes: Cedar, oak, bergamot, sandalwood

Scent Choice: Optimism

Location: Premium retail

Type: Oriental

Personality: Exquisite, sophisticated, warm, sensual

Notes: Warm spice, cinnamon and nutmeg with soft musk blend

Scent Choice: Lemongrass ginger

Location: Recreation and leisure clubs

Some scents are known to be more “masculine” and are usually related to rich notes such as
sandalwood and spice. These characteristics are commonly connected with a more bold and
strong personality. Business environment such as luxurious car showroom, whose brand
persona is power and performance, might go for these notes.

Tea notes, which exude soft, calming, relax and peaceful emotion are a perfect fit for
environment who seeks a soothing and pleasant atmosphere, and could be the scent choice to
uplift your environment with that subtle yet lifestyle centric ambiance.

For sweet fruity lovers, these individual tend to be fun, playful, sweet and sociable Perhaps,
kids’ centric environment such as playschool house can help elevate the fun aura among the
kids!

Initial scent marketing utilizes an expert site study to recommend suitable scenting spaces with
the right scent for your brand personality. Initial in Singapore uses cutting edge technology to
scent your space, learn more today. Sign up for a free trial to experience yourself and lift moods
today!