Stores, products, companies, and public spaces – all have become a paradise of smells. Desiring to buy a fresh pair of shoes? Upon entering Foot Locker stores in Europe, the scent of newly purchased sneakers will perhaps attract your nostrils enough for you to make a purchase. Do you dream of taking a cross-country road trip? The smell of “Citrus Flavored Summer” in Fiat 500 vehicles might entice you to select this car as your adventuring companion. Whatever the cause, a powerful business trend in a sector of sense marketing – scent branding – has swept throughout companies in recent years.
Using scent to affect perception is not a new phenomenon. People have used perfumes to transform their presentation, mask their odors and to enhance their interaction for years. However, according to marketing experts, brand communication is 80% audio and visual (Vogt, 2008; web). Martin Lindstrom, in book Brand Sense: Build powerful brands through touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound, critiques this, arguing that 75 percent of all the emotions we generate every day come from smell. He states, “Through our research, we’ve seen that we’re not only able to change consumers’ impression of a brand, we can also change consumers’ perception of time, size and quality" (Lindstrom 2005). With little attention given to smell, an omnipresent sense, it is no surprise that marketers, in their drive to innovate memorable brand experiences, are taking advantage of the power of scent to strike emotional connections with people, places and things. As stated by Robert Klara in his article, "Good marketing ideas have a way of sticking around" (Klara, 2012; web). Scent, then seems to provide an avenue.
Thus, the goal and aim of scent branding in businesses is to not only garner the attention of customers, but also to evoke a certain “feel”. For example, by employing candles at every table at a restaurant, a sense of warmth and romanticism is evoked to food connoisseurs, which may directly impact their overall experience there. By using this marketing technique, the restaurant is not only bringing families and loved ones together, but also making more sales because those who enjoy having meals in such an atmosphere will continue coming back, and share their memorable experiences there with others.
Because marketers strongly believe that ambient scents in stores enhance a brand’s image and have the power to intimately connect with the consumer, scent branding has become a popular practice among corporations over the years. When our olfactory receptors transfer the scents into our limbic system, our brain then elicits certain emotions and memories, which can then influence consumer behavior and decision-making in stores. Based off of past experiences and research, businesses have used different scents to appeal to specific target markets. By doing this, they have successfully lured (and will continue doing so) their customers to linger longer and buy their merchandise.
Scents have also become a pivotal factor in establishing brand and product identity. The use of a consistent smell to represent a product line or company can serve as both a means of attracting customers and as a means of creating a lasting emotional connection between the brand and consumer. This becomes extremely important in today’s marketplace where consumer impressions are increasingly tougher to get. Distinct smells associated with products can become a point of differentiation from competitors. Well-branded scents can open up an opportunity for companies to build an image and brand in line with the emotions their scent evokes. The brand can therefore become more dynamic as it creates a much more fulfilling experiences for customers.
In a more macroscopic sense, marketing ambient-scent does not focus on one product, but rather on one location. Large and spacious areas become arenas for companies marketing towards armies of consumers. Places like hotels, gyms, spas, and casinos all utilize ambient-scent marketing. Companies like ScentAir create unique scents for their clients to circulate throughout the property or wherever needed to get the desired effect on the consumers olfactory receptors. By creating a mood-specific (usually relaxed) environment through ambient-scent and aromatherapy, companies like British Airways and Westin hotels touch on smell’s connection with memory. They have created a link that imparts memories of a relaxing image of their brand in the mind of the consumer through a familiar smell.
With the ability of odor to lure customers by delving into their minds, smell as a marketing model sounds incredibly effective for companies, stores and entities. However, such a model becomes potentially problematic when technology allows for the artificial engineering of smell and with increased reliance on fragrances. Thus, scent branding, similar to logo branding , holds ethical dimensions. The ethical battleground for scent marketing is complex and can be considered in multiple aspects. Ultimately, next time you step into a store, you should pay attention to the pleasurable smell that enters your nose, and be aware of what it is trying to evoke in you. To explore scent branding, we will look at: scent marketing techniques, branding unique scents, ambient scents, and the ethics of this fragrance branding.
By Sharon Wu, Tony Huynh, Justin Gabbert, Jimmie Bryce
References
Klara, Robert. "Something In The Air". Adweek. n.d., 5 March 2012. Web. 6 May 2012.
Lindstrom, Martin and Philip Kotler (2005). Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands Through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Vogt, Harald. "The Sweet Scent of Smell Marketing". Branding Strategy Insider. The Blake Project, 2008. Web. 6 May 2012.
A common question that people ask is, “why do businesses rely on scents and aromas to lure their customers?” Before going into this, we must first understand the fundamental structure of the nose, and how this structure allows for certain consumer behavior and the execution of successful business sales. According to a blog on serendip.edu, a blogger explains in detail the complex process of how humans perceive smell. A good understanding of this process will then allow us to observe how people respond to different scents in stores.
“When we smell something, air flows through the nose and is directed to the olfactory epithelium. A certain olfactory receptor binds to the different odor molecules with different affinities which then activates a second messenger system... (the action potential generated by this second messenger system eventually brings) recognition of the odor (to the) limbic system of the brain. The signal from the initial odor is interpreted and compared to past experiences with the odor and the substance from which the odor was emitted. The limbic system is associated with mood, memory, and emotion.”
Figure 1: Smell is perceived when the scent of the object travels up the nasal cavity and connects to the olfactory bulb and limbic system of the brain, which activates that smell and induces specific emotions and memories depending on each person’s past individual experiences.
With this understanding, businesses are able to appeal to their prospective customers by picking fragrances to associate with their products that they feel people would best react to. According to “Scent of a Market” by Maxine Wilkie and “Scent and Sensibility” by James Vlahos, research confirms that 75% of emotions are generated by smell, and that consequently, “smell represents a direct line to feelings of happiness and hunger and is a sensory bandwidth that cannot be turned off” (Wilkie 1995, Vlahos 2007). Additionally, there is a strong correlation between scent and mood, memory, and emotion; one finding indicates that “we are 100 times more likely to remember something that we smell rather than something that we see, hear, or touch” (Vlahos 2007). From a marketer’s perspective, smell has an immediate effect on consumers’ emotional state, which, as some research has shown, ultimately affects shopping and spending habits. Because of this, businesses strive to use scents to manipulate customers by installing scent-emitting devices discretely in their stores to relax their consumers and indirectly ask them to linger longer, contemplate, and in the end, buy their products over another store that may not have such a unique scent. Of course, it is not possible to satisfy everybody, but by installing a “signature” scent in a store, those who enjoy that scent are most likely going to come back and remain loyal to its brand.
Aromatech: Retail Scent Marketing on Today Tonight This YouTube video shows businesses’ strategic method of utilizing scents to make people “stay and pay.” While the importance of smell may not seem obvious, smells can create big businesses. The video shows that through the use of sensory branding, businesses are able to make customers feel at home in stores.
Building off of the idea of a store’s “signature scent” mentioned earlier, fragrance marketing is also imperative for establishing a brand. A popular example of this is found in a trendy and well-liked store among teenagers, Abercrombie & Fitch. In an article, “The Sweet Benefits of Scent Marketing,” Marnie Settle notes that when you walk into one of their stores, “you will find that their whole store smells like their signature fragrance.” When you try on their clothes, you will also discover that even the clothes are saturated with their fragrance. Because they make their fragrance so prominent, visitors instantly know that the store they just walked into was A&F even without having paid attention to the name of the store prior to entering. Also, the fragrance on the clothing that people try on have an indirect way of luring them into buying it, or at least one of the couple pieces of clothing that are usually brought into fitting rooms. After customers buy and wear the clothing, they also carry A&F’s lingering scent, which may result in others around them either positively or negatively reacting to the scent of the clothing. This reaction can strongly influence the customer’s second (and possibly, final) impression of the store. For example, if I wore a new shirt that I had just recently bought from A&F and my boyfriend told me that he loved the scent, I would be more inclined to go back and either buy more of their clothing or at least the perfume that they used. However, if he expressed disgust toward the scent, I would be influenced to never wear the shirt again, and most likely, never again shop at A&F. By using distinguished scents in stores, companies strive to identify with a group of individuals with similar “tastes,” and usually, these people are the ones who continually come back.
Ambient scents in stores affect consumers differently, depending on one’s past experiences and associations with various scents. This means that scents are used to determine the type of shopper as well. Karen Ravn reports in her account, “Smells Like Sales,” that a 2005 study was conducted to examine the effects of a pleasant ambient scent on two kinds of shoppers: the impulsive shopper (one who does not really think twice before buying something), and the contemplative shopper (one who tends to debate with oneself whether or not the purchase is worth it). According to their own reports, the contemplative ones ended up spending more money in stores with pleasant ambient scents, while the impulsive ones spent less (Ravn 2007). This goes to show just how powerful scents are in manipulating shoppers and persuading them to notice, like, and ultimately, buy something of a brand.
Fragrancing in stores may also entice people to share reviews based off of personal experiences on popular social websites, such as Yelp, which can also indirectly “market” a business in a positive or negative way, depending on each person’s experience. This is when one’s mood, memories, and emotions at that particular store come into play. If one’s mood was terrible because the scent of the store triggered bad memories or emotions, for example, he/she may be biased in his/her report on Yelp and take off a star (or more depending on the level of intensity he/she feels) for the bad smell, which also may influence his overall writing about the store and its products. However, if one was lured in by the smell because it elicited great memories and a comfortable feel, he/she may immediately, without a thought, give the store five stars and a very positive review, even despite the other not-so-prominent flaws that the store may have.
By Sharon Wu
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Sources:
"Scent Marketing: Does It Work? Who Nose..." Serendip Home. Web. 04 May 2012. <http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/2378>.
Settle, Marnie. "The Sweet Benefits of Scent Marketing." The Sweet Benefits of Scent Marketing. Web. 04 May 2012. <http://www.marniesettle.com/?p=38>.
Ravn, Karen (2007). “Smells like Sales.” Los Angeles Times. August 20, F-1.
Vlahos, James (2007). “Scent and Sensibility.” The New York Times. September 9.
Wilkie, Maxine (1995). “Scent of a Market.” American Demographics. 17 (8), 40-47.
Let’s start by revisiting some common childhood memories: the scent your mother’s freshly baked cookies in the kitchen; the aroma of your freshly laundered clothes after a long day of athletic activity and running around; the distinct smell of your mother’s specialty dish. These are all smells that we instantly recognize, albeit, in our own ways depending on our past experiences. Understanding that smells have the power to trigger memories and emotional responses, businesses have begun using marketing strategies to brand fragrances in attempt to attract customers. For example, when you walk into Starbucks, you will find that the whole store is filled with the strong smells of coffee beans and coffee being brewed. Even though Starbucks may not intentionally make their whole store smell like this, they are effectively (but indirectly) marketing their beverages well. Starbucks is known for its distinct rich, flavorful, and inviting coffee scent. Even one who has never been to or heard of Starbucks may be inclined to purchase a beverage if they are attracted to the smell that the store emanates.
Figure 2: Because of the constant circulation of coffee bean aromas, the distinct smell of coffee beans is often associated with popular coffee shops like Starbucks Coffee. Depending on what emotions and memories this smell induces, one may be very inclined (or not) to buy a coffee from such stores. Coffee shops like Starbucks attracts those who are fond of coffee aromas, and such customers often stay loyal to their brand if they receive excellent service and enjoy their overall experience.
In “Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound,” scholars Martin Lindstrom and Philip Kotler mention a study which shows that “84% of people were more likely to buy, or liked them more, when in a scented room. In the same study, many of the subjects reported they would pay 10-15% more for the product.” (Lindstrom and Kotler 2003). With this said, there is a strong correlation between the ambient smells of a store and customer’s response, which would then trigger their ultimate decision on whether or not they want to buy something.
BusinessVoice Marketing Minute: Benefits of Aroma Marketing This YouTube video demonstrates how the sense of smell is used to create desire for certain products, like foods, beverages, clothing, and automobiles. The scents that businesses instill in their products and stores affect the consumers’ minds consciously and subconsciously, and strengthens consumer bonds to products, places, and experiences. The video effectively highlights the importance of smell with regard to the success of a business because it argues that shoppers can choose what they want to see while shopping, but unlike the practice of looking, the practice of smell is unavoidable. Study shows that places with pleasant aromas tend to make people stay up to 40% longer.
You may have noticed over the years, that laundry detergents and cleaning products tend to be scented like fresh flowers, rain, or plants with alluring smells. Yet, you probably have not taken the time to contemplate the possibilities of why this may be. Why would competitors in the cleaning sector all choose to make their products smell similar to each other? This is because research has been done and indicated that when “customers sniff these products, it relates to a sense of comfort and pleasure in them.” In other words, based off of past experience and research, most consumers enjoy their clean laundry to smell like fresh nature. Going off of this, businesses strive to use similar scents to attract customers to buy their products. Even though the scents may be very similar or even the same, the consumer will also take into consideration the price and amount given per bottle to get the most of their money. By being able to smell such an aroma, one can not only distinguish between laundry detergent and bleach, but he/she can also look forward to the fresh, comforting scent after finishing his/her laundry. By understanding consumer behavior, businesses have successfully marketed their products to best suit their customers’ needs and interests.
The use of fragrance marketing is also popular in the market for new homes. Think back to the last time you went shopping for a new home - you may remember that there were a couple homes that had distinct scents (from candles, air fresheners, or even freshly baked cookies) that may have put you at ease and triggered a fond memory, which then made you prefer those homes over the ones that may not have had such distinct scents. Typically, those who use scents in their homes are trying to not only market their homes and essentially, tell the prospective home-buyers that their home is better than the others in the market, but also, give the customer a sense of comfort and joy associated with the home. By doing this, they guide the customers to think that by buying this home, they will be able to enjoy this comfort and joy forever. Again, this shows how marketing products and places tend to be a lot more successful when fragrances and scents are used. By emanating a sense of pleasure, joy, comfort, and nostalgia, businesses effectively gain recognition and garner the interest of the consumers, which then brings them sales.
By Sharon Wu
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Sources:
Branding Strategies to Brand Fragrances and Machine Scents – What Effect Do They Have?
Web. 04 May 2012.
<http://www.mashave.com/business/branding-strategies-to-brand-fragrances-and-machine-scents-what-effect-do-they-have/>.
Lindstrom, Martin and Philip Kotler (2005). Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands Through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
Typically scents have been used in magazine advertisements by
perfume, cologne and air freshener products as a means of both advertising and
providing a sample of their product. This is an advertising technique that has
been around for many years, but there is a new trend in scent marketing and
advertising. More and more companies, not involved in the scent retail business, are using scent strips in magazines in order to create a full experience for
the consumer viewing the advertisement. For example, Tanqueray Gin ran a
pine-scented advertisement in USA Today,
Rolls Royce used leather-scented strips in Architectural Digest, and the state of Utah used floral and spice scented
strips to accent their four-page advertisement in a tourism magazine. As our
society continues to shift toward a market based on mass consumption, it has
become increasingly more difficult for companies to break through the
tremendous amount of advertising clutter. Adding a scent to advertisements
creates a separate element for the consumer to experience. Considering that
scents are far more memory based than visual elements, this branding technique
can use familiar scents in hopes of triggering a positive memory or feeling
within the customer. If this is done correctly, a well-placed scent can be
extremely influential in a consumer’s emotional response to an advertisement.
Thus, the brand becomes far more dynamic as customers can find an emotional
attachment not only through the pictures and logo, but also the emotions evoked
by certain odors. Pam Ellen and Paula Bone, in their article Does It
Matter If It Smells? Olfactory Stimuli As Advertising Executional Cues, state, “odors stimulate the limbic system, the part
of the brain responsible for emotional responses”. The use of scents in
branding allows the advertisers to tap into the emotions of the consumer
without cognitive interference.
Though
products scents can be a way for companies to create an advertising competitive
advantage, there are some studies that suggest attaching scents to
advertisements may have its limitations. For example, the location and timing
of a product scent in advertising can make or break the consumer’s perception
of the product. Often times people become frightened when a scent appears out
of place or in a situation that wouldn’t warrant such a smell. This phenomenon
usually happens when a company puts an advertisement with a scent in a public
area where the scent does not match the location. A “Got Milk?” advertisement experienced
this problem first hand when they put a milk advertisement with a chocolate
chip cookie aroma in a bus stop in San Francisco. Rather than motivating the
consumer to purchase milk and cookies or branding the campaign with that scent,
the advertisement confused the bus patrons who could not locate where the smell
was coming from. In other words, since the people waiting for the bus could not
see the cookies or a cookie store, the smell of fresh baked cookies became
alarming and uncomfortable rather than pleasurable. * CBS News article about the cookie scented advertisements in San Francisco (http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-205_162-2233121.html).
Another limitation of scent marketing and branding relates
to how effective a scent associated with a product can be without the immediate
satisfaction of owning or consuming such product. The synthetic creation of the
“fresh Apple product scent” is a great example of how a distinct product scent
may not evoke the same emotions if its void of the great product it represents.
A group of Australians teamed up with Air Aroma to create a perfume that mimics
the scent that one could expect when opening up a brand new apple product, such
as the iPod or MacBook. Though the perfume is currently a novelty item, one can
question whether this perfume would generate a similar amount of excitement as
the sense of joy one gets from opening up and smelling the package of their
brand new MacBook Pro.
Can
a Distinct Smell Influence a Purchase Decision or Add Value to Your Product?
Though
there are mixed results when studying the affect a scent has on an advertisement, many studies suggest that well aligned
scents used in conjunction with a product can stimulate a purchase. For
example, Exxon On the Run stores increased their sales of coffee by 55% with
the addition of a stronger coffee scent next to their brewing area. Hershey’s
chocolate also experienced success when attaching their famous Hershey’s
chocolate scent to vending machines. The added chocolate fragrance helped them
triple sales. Below are a few cases where large companies have increased the value of their product through the addition of scent marketing and branding techniques.
Burger King vs. McDonald's -
In looking at the role scent plays for two very similar fast
food companies, McDonald's and Burger King we begin to see how different companies
place varying amount of stress on the marketing importance of different senses.
McDonald's is thought to primarily brand itself based on elements of sight.
Though they do use the smell of their fries as a marketing technique associated
to scent, they do not rely on scent nearly as much as Burger King. With regard
to the senses, Burger King uses both sight and scent elements relatively
equally. Burger King even uses elements of scent through audiovisual mediums.
For example, one of their most recent commercial advertising campaigns was
structured around the concept of their burgers being grilled on an open flame.
In the television commercials they used images of a burger being grilled
juxtaposed with sounds of sizzling and snapping. The consumer absorbs the
advertisement and begins to create a perception of what odor would accompany
the freshly grilled burger. When entering their restaurants the customer not
only expects to smell such odor, but consequently imagines such an odor being
associated with the burger, whether it actually exists or not. Burger King can
therefore give the customers the impression that their burgers are grilled
fresh and are of higher quality and taste than their competitors. A customer’s
emotional response and attachment to Burger King is thus far more reliant on
smell than their competitor McDonalds, who has restructured many of their
restaurants to be more visually appealing.
* Burger King commercial that uses audiovisual techniques that relate to scent.
Nike
Shoes -
In this case identical pairs of Nike shoes were placed in two different
rooms. One of the rooms was unscented and the other was filled with a floral
fragrance. Even though the scent was not specific to the element presented to
purchase there was a correlation to a willingness to purchase and the expected
price of the shoes. 84% of the customers preferred the Nike shoes in the
scented room and were on average willing to pay an additional $10.23 for the
product. Though there are mixed results when connecting a non-literal scent to
a product, this study shows that there is a definite correlation to a consumer’s
decision with the addition of a pleasant and mood-lifting scent.
Disney
Restaurants -
Disney uses scent in a different
way to create value for their food products. Disney
food services were faced with the issue of trying to make their pre-cooked
hamburgers and french fries appear as if they were freshly cooked right then
and there. The solution involved creating a fragrance to put on the meat and
french fries that, when heated to 110 degrees, would release a fresh grilled
scent. This makes perfect sense considering the incredible close
correlation between one’s sense of smell and taste. When the burgers and fries
are heated up in the different Disney restaurants there is a smell of both
freshly grilled burgers and fresh cut french fries. Even though you cannot mask
the inherent taste of the meat and fries, this marketing technique gives the
consumer the perception that the products served by Disney restaurants are
quality freshly cooked items. This is yet another element that allows Disney to
maintain high prices for the food in their restaurants even though the quality
may not match.
Literal Scent Marketing
Have you ever walked through a mall or outdoor shopping center and immediately recognized the smell of your favorite fast food restaurant before you even turned the corner to see the storefront? Literal scent marketing involves using the actual scent of a product in order to add another dimension to the branding experience. This is a much more established and effective form of using scents to create a brand around your product. There are countless examples of brands that have a very specific scent attached to their name. Anyone who has indulged in a Cinnabon cinnamon role, KFC’s fried chicken, or McDonald’s french fries can tell you that there is an overwhelming aroma associated with each of these guilty pleasures. Companies such as these, who have very unique and distinct smelling products, are primed to use the literal scent of their product in conjunction with visual and audio cues to create a dynamic experience for the consumer.
Cinnabon uses both the scent of their freshly baked goods along with a synthetic scent that is dispersed out into malls in hopes of luring customers over to their storefront. The synthetic scent that is designed to replicate that of the actual fresh cinnamon role can be very useful during the times when the store is not actually baking. The dispersion of the scent throughout the malls not only establishes a sense of presence for Cinnabon, but also a unique experience for the customer who associates the smell with a fresh and consistently delicious product. The Cinnabon scent then becomes a link between the product itself and the branding goals of freshness, consistency, pleasure, satisfaction, and desire.
KFC was the next company to begin using the literal smells of their food in hopes of attracting more customers during meal times. They have not only used synthetic scents to add to the fried chicken aroma in their restaurants but also on mail carts. The use of a synthetic fried chicken odor on mail carts is extremely intriguing as KFC perfumes mail carts in large office buildings that drop off mail to cubicle workers prior to lunchtime. This is an example of how a distinct and well-known product scent can both mobilize consumers and establish a branding presence within a competitive market.
How
Scents Can Evoke Different Emotions Associated with the Brand
In a study done with two unique and different brands of soap,
Dove and Irish Spring, we can see the importance of scent and how it can evoke
emotions in line with a company’s branding strategy. Though Dove and Irish
Spring are competing shower body soaps, their brands are extremely different.
Dove is a hydrating bar that is meant to cleanse the body of oils without
drying out the skin. Irish Spring, on the other hand, is a deodorizing brand of
soap that is designed to not only cleanse the body, but also to mask and minimize
body odor for the rest of the day. When asked about the scents of both brands
and the emotions they elicited, the scents followed suit to the general
branding strategy of both products. Consumers claimed that the scent of Dove
made them feel relaxed, valued and calm. Irish Spring, on the other hand, made
consumers feel energized, pleased and stimulated. Though both products yield similar results in the shower, the emotional experience of using both products is extremely different. The branding and marketing strategy thus becomes less dependent on the price point and functionality of the products, and more dependent on the emotions and memories triggered by the two very different scents.
By Justin Gabbert
Works Cited
Bell, Stephen. "Future Sense:
Defining Brands Through Scent."WPP. 2006. Web. 6 May 2012.
<http://www.wpp.com/NR/rdonlyres/D9729054-FF03-4014-B1C9-0066E6F3511C/0/coley_futuresense.pdf>.
Cuda, Gretchen. "Marketers Know It's
Hard to Resist Foods When You're Tempted by Scents: Fighting Fat."The Plain Dealer. 6 Apr. 2010. Web. 07 May 2012.
<http://www.cleveland.com/fighting-fat/index.ssf/2010/04/marketers_know_its_hard_to_resist_foods_when_youre_tempted_by_scents_fighting_fat.html>.
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Nose."Adweek – Breaking
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<http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/buying-nose-94779>.
Pam Scholder Ellen and Paula Fitzgerald Bone, “Does It
Matter If It Smells? Olfactory Stimuli as Advertising Executional Cues”. Journal
of Advertising, Vol. 27,
No. 4 (Winter, 1998), pp. 29-39
Reid, Ben. "This Perfume Is Based On
The Scent Of Brand New Apple Products | Redmond Pie."Redmond Pie. 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 07 May 2012.
<http://www.redmondpie.com/this-perfume-is-based-on-the-scent-of-brand-new-apple-products/>.
The scent of a product in relation to customer behavior is the idea behind scent marketing. Shifting the focus from product to the macroscopic framing of place incorporates what is called ambient scent marketing/branding. Similar to individual products, places such as hospitals, gyms, spas, casinos, airports, and theme parks incorporate a specific smell in their marketing approach to the consumer. The perceived scent of these places is intrinsically related to their identity and their success. The ambient scent of these large spaces is not solely how good the air smells. Instead, it is a combination of how the air smells, what cannot be smelled in the air, and the perception of the consumer. Manipulating the scents of a hospital or spa can alter the moods of the clientele as well as their perception of their surroundings. In an effort to maintain a “clean atmosphere” hospitals have installed air diffusers that disperse essential oils through the atmosphere of the building in an attempt to kill any harmful bacteria in the air. The main purpose of these diffusers is not for the building to become overwhelmed with a fragrant identity like a retailer would. On the contrary, the goal of ambient scent marketing in these hospitals is to establish an association with cleanliness, and what some may call an association with nothing, the absence of fragrance. However, some hospitals have utilized smell and scent’s immediate connection to the brain to help in their everyday procedures. Picking up a note from health spas, some hospitals have started to utilize aromatherapy’s calming effect on its patients in an effort to increase their relaxation. This has been common in room-specific environments such as the confined spaces around CAT scans or the anxious waiting room of the lobby. The aromatic industry company Novasans alongside Queensland University in Australia has developed such products to “reduce the stress in the symphatic nerve terminal activity” which leads patients to feel more at ease (NovaSans). Airline companies have started to get in on aromatherapy and its effect on the consumer as well. British Airways has recently started using a scent named “Meadow Grass” in their airport lounges to relax passengers before their upcoming flights (Bosmans, 2006). Not only are airlines manipulating olfactory perception, but the tourist destinations they fly to have started experimenting with scent as well.
Mandalay Bay Casino in Las Vegas, NV - The resort is guilty of circulating ScentAir’s “Coconut Spice” scent throughout the 135,000 square foot casino and hotel in hopes of getting you to gamble more money.
Since the mid-1990’s Las Vegas casinos have been guilty of playing on the anxiety of their clients through ambient smell marketing. In an effort to boost gambling, casinos have turned towards sensory marketing, more specifically, ambient scent manipulation. Casinos typically use scents that cross a combination of coconut, guava, hibsiscus, and grapefruit. Their goal is ultimately the same as the hospital or the spa, relaxation. A relaxed gambler is more apt to stay longer and therefore is more likely to gamble and lose more money to the casino. In one study a casino added a floral scent to an otherwise non-odorized casino floor and found that when compared against a control, the gambling in the scented area increased 45% (Villano, 2009). Not all added scents have been successful in their persuasion of the consumer. In 2006, the “Got Milk” ad campaign (California Milk Processor Board) posted giant ads at multiple bus stops throughout San Francisco. The company hoped they could rely on smells connection with taste to boost sales by creating scented advertisements. The ads consisted of “chocolate-chip scented” scented oils sandwiched between two giant cardboard cookies. Comments came in saying that the bus stops smelled “like cookies and bums” and nauseated some pedestrians. It’s worth to note that artificial fragrances are not subject to government regulation. The ads elicited so many complaints in the first day of their display that they were taken down the next day. Many organizations fighting against diabetes, obesity, and homelessness were vocal in their displeasure with the advertisements. Ultimately the ads cost $300,000 and lasted only 36 hours (Farooq, 2006). The California Milk Processor Board should have taken a clue from Disney on how to circulate the smell of fresh-baked cookies. Depending on whom you ask one of the most memorable scents in theme parks is on Main Street in Disneyland. The Blue Ribbon Bakery swipes at your olfactory through an enhanced circulation of its fresh-baked treats. Under the windowsill in front of the bakery are high-powered fans that vent from the bakery’s ovens. The vents are aimed upwards at the awnings of the café which help increase the circulation of the memorable scent (Trahan, 2004).
The Blue Ribbon Bakery on Main Street USA in Disneyland - Guilty of taking your dough for some cookies through ambient scent marketing.
By Jimmie Bryce
References Bosmans, Anick. “Scents and Sensibility: When Do (In)Congruent Ambient Scents Influence Product Evaluations?” Journal of Marketing , Vol. 70, No. 3 (Jul., 2006), pp. 32-43 Published by:American Marketing Association Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/30162099
Farooq, S. " Cookie-scented bus stop ads crumble." San Francisco Examiner [SanFrancisco] 6 12 2006, G24. 6 May. 2012. <http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/cookie-scented-bus-stop-ads-crumble>.
Hirsch, A. R. (1995), Effects of ambient odors on slot-machine usage in a las vegas casino. Psychol. Mark., 12: 585–594. doi: 10.1002/mar.4220120703
Trahan, Kendra. Disneyland Detective: An Independent Guide to Discovering Disne'ys Legend, Lore, and Magic. Permagrin Publishing, 2004. Web. <http://books.google.com/books hl=en&lr=&id=LhNnYczFJt8C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=scentdisneyland&ots=rTqtBq8xdj&sig=Y0T_Q3uZnIDlV4LlWHWtJECxrSA Villano, Matt. "Scent marketing in casinos: keeping players." San Francisco Chronicle [San Francisco] 19 11 2009, G24. Web. 6 May. 2012. <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/18/NS501AJV5F.DTL>.
As in this film, it is ethical to generate a fragrance so aromatic that everyone becomes influenced by it?
Perfume and Fragrance as Marketing
Caribbean citrus, fig,
baked bread, Brazilian rosewood, grapefruit or White Tea. Regardless of which
one of these exotic fragrances you smell, there is no doubt that many stores,
hotels, and products have aromatic fragrances emanating from them. For many
businesses, scent and fragrance have become a useful sensory tool in
influencing the human mind, often for the purpose of establishing brand image
and generating sales. With new advances in odor-producing technology and
diffusion mechanisms, and the ability to deconstruct smells and recreate them,
perfumers can now virtually engineer any scent (Morgan, 2011; web). This means
that businesses and entities can create powerful odors and waft them throughout
their stores and products, and ultimately, into the minds of their consumers.
This method serves a subliminal marketing and image generating
technique, whether it is to entice shoppers to expend cash for a product
or to make an experience at a public location more authentic and
inviting.
With our sense of smell being so
omnipresent and involuntary and such a marketing and branding tool
technique sweeping through the fragrance and consumer industries, we
should consider the ethical implications of scent branding. To highlight the
issue, I turn the spotlight to the use of scent to impact emotions, the use of
artificial fragrance to encourage buying, and the concealing of the ingredients
of a fragrance used within public spaces.
A Commodity of Emotion?
Hotels like the Venetian and stores like Abercrombie & Fitch inundate the noses of their guests and customers with powerful essences intended to create a certain mood.
In their journal article on
ambient scents and consumer reactions, Charles Gules and Peter Bloch discuss
recent experiments, where it is discovered that the scent branding practice has
been “backed with findings that pleasant scents directly associated with a
product increased the favorableness of customer evaluations” (Gules and Bloch,
1995; 88). Compelling scientific evidence exists of the intricate relationship between
olfactory experience and the humanlimbic system, the center orb of memories
emotion in the human brain. With such a direct connection between smell
and sentiment, it sounds attractive for companies to use this to their
advantage.
International
Flavors and Fragrances, an international perfume company, recently planned a
social experiment in the South Bronx. In the low-income Saint Theresa
Apartments, the company hoped to inject the air of the building's hallways and
common areas with a pleasant-smelling fragrance, in an attempt to make
residents happier (Rovzar, 2010; web). The scent, calledL'Eau Vert du Bronx du Sur (Green
Water of the South Bronx), is intended to evoke a feeing of happiness, shining
optimism and calmness in the 200 residents who occupy the complex. In a
setting of low-income individuals who are perhaps struggling, the perfume can enliven their well-being. However, could it be considered unethical, to manipulate the behavior of unsuspecting people?
Similar ambient scenting in
public spaces has played its role in influencing people’s reactions and
reception. At the Venetian and Palazzo Hotels in Las Vegas for example, the
guest experience largely transcends the mock Italian architecture. The hotels'
signature and recognizable fragrance Arancia(Orange), concocted of white
jasmine flowers, roses, Italian mandarin oil, sandlewood, amber and musk, fills
the entire chambers of the resort (Cohen, 2011; web). The scent has evoked
feelings of sophistication, hominess, freshness and cleanness in resort guests
that overall enhances their experience and incentive to stay. I can tell you
from personal experience that the aroma of the Venetian is indeed aromatic but
far from subtle, as it can be pleasurable smelled in every corner of the
resort. Furthermore, hotel guests often seek the aromatic fragrance, which is
available for purchase.
In both cases, scent and odor are used as a way
to market and influence the emotions of people. Emotion and perception, it
seems, are transformed by scent branding into avenues that businesses and companies can exploit and
control. By using our emotions through perfumes and artificial smells, attempting
to inject a response, and entice us to buy, is this creating a commodity of our
emotions? On one side of the discussion, this can be seen as a problem. Deception-detection, the use of machinery to read the minds of people, is banned as a practice in the courts. Scent branding, through its power to control emotions and affect the memories of people, should be, in this respect, seen as unethical as well. However, people have used perfumes and fragrances for years as a way to alter other people's perception of them. For example, a woman can use perfume to hide her natural body odor and to entice a gentleman into pursing her even more. This cultural practice is entirely acceptable. Should fragrance branding be a concern then?
Delicious Trickery
This YouTube video
by CBS talks about the use of scent branding by a Brooklyn supermarket in an
attempt to boost sales of the products by making shoppers more hungry.
To explore further, we can look at smells used as a form of "deceit" and making money.Technological advances have allowed for odors
to be synthetically and cheaply added to any environment, which can prove
highly favorable for stores and companies. This can be in the form of increased
sales, customer followings and/or improved reception of the environment. As
covered by Time Magazine and as seen in the above video by CBS,Net Cost supermarket in Brooklyn, N.Y.
emanates never-ending, aromatic smells of “chocolate, grapefruit, and rosemary
focaccia” that greets the nostrils of shoppers. (Sanburn, 2011; web). This
smells wonderful. However, the catch is that while this supermarket does
stock these products, the strong smells are artificial. The aromas are
ventilated throughout the store through specialized scent machines, placed in
strategic positions with smells wafting near their respective grocery item.
Similarly,the fresh smell of
churned chocolate fills the floors of the M&M's store in London. Although
this smell is not detected due to the chocolate being packaged in bags,
the scent machines in the store solve this problem.
Imagine you are in a
theme park or bakery. Do the smells of cotton candy and pizza convince you to
buy something more than if you did not smell anything? For many stores, scent
marketing serves as a way to make customers hungrier and positive, and in
turn, more comfortable with opening their wallets. In this way, it seems that
they are tricking customers through manipulating their olfactory
experience. With smell accounting for 75 percent of what we taste, it makes
sense to use scent as a way for making profit. However, is using fake,
artificial smell to goad and dupe customers into buying unethical?
On the one hand, coercion and
mind-controlling people through the control of emotions can be regarded as unethical. If you are trying to take advantage of a person’s
intimate, delicate emotions for the sake of generating profit, it should be a
controversial act. Especially in the case of the Net Cost supermarket’s
management, you know you are intentionally injecting artificial smells to make
people buy products. Is this act of “trickery” unacceptable? Is it
manipulative? On top of this, is the ambient inundation of stories with
fragrances unethical?
At the same
time, the main point of retail is to create a comfortable environment primed
for customers to purchase. It is business after all. The customer is shopping, and going to a
Christmas store for example with smells of hot chocolate, evergreen trees, and candy canes
just makes the experience all the better and inviting. Thus, it should be acceptable for
businesses as a marketing tool and tool to make money, their primary practice. Using artificial smell is certainly is not infringing on anyone’s
rights, so it cannot be unethical. Marketing is all about creating
techniques that sticks a product within the minds of people, whether though
sound, sight, or symbols. Scent, then, is just a technique to make a product
and space all the more memorable.
Secrecy of Fragrances
On discussing the ethics of scent branding, Siobhan O’Connorstates, “the fragrance industry…trades largely in
toxic chemicals that are known allergens and likely hormone disruptors” (O'Connor, 2012; web). The
powerful, musky aroma of the Venetian hotel and the enticing, woodsy smell of
Abercrombie & Fitch immediately fills your nose as you soon open the doors.
As inviting and irresistible as the fragrance is, it is concocted from
thousands of chemical ingredients that can individually smell grotesque and
undesirable. This blen, however, has the potential to induce allergic reactions
in some people and as communicated by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, the
makeup of the blend is is almost always kept hidden from the consumer as a
"trade secret".
If stores like
Abercrombie and hotels like the Venetian ventilate such smells throughout their
spaces without alerting unsuspecting people who will have serious or
uncomfortable reactions, it becomes a problem of ethics. Since fragrance is
kept in secrecy within scent branding and the practice is projected upon
consumers as they enter stores, should this be a cause for concern? At the same time, if stories give fair warning that their spaces are scented and people with allergies should avoid, they are acting reasonably. Although it is an artificially engineered scent, it is difficult to take a one-sided approach. Especially if the purpose for a business is to thrive by making an alluring experience for the mass, so affecting a few people should not be a problem.
Ethical Complexities
It is clear that companies are becoming increasingly attuned to
the power of scents in influencing the human mind. With its ability to conjure
up emotions and recollections, scent can serve as an effective instrument in achieving goals of marketing
products and locations, and in creating brand identity. However with
such a direct pathway to the innermost chambers of our minds – the place where we feel and
think –it becomes alarming to imagine
businesses employing this tactic, often for us to buy their products.The central ethical questions seem to
be this: it acceptable to use odors to trigger emotional
reactions in unaware, unsuspecting people?
As discussed earlier, it is
difficult to firmly conclude whether scent branding in is ethical, for the
issue is not simply a black-and-white matter. There is little
scientific evidence to prove that scents, fragrances, and aromas can be used
like drugs to control the brains of people. Furthermore, cultural context is always changing. Certain practices can be both acceptable and not. Thus, it is hard to pinpoint the ethical boundaries of scent branding. While odor does
indeed exert an effect on us and affect our perception, it is uncertain as to
whether it can be a mind control device. Furthermore, businesses market - it is their job and what they need to do to generate money. Ultimately, the ethics of scent branding
is still open to discussion and serves as a viable topic for further research
and consideration. However, we just need to be aware of this sector of marketing the next time we step into a store or a hotel.
Tell us what do you think. Is scent branding and marketing ethical? Or can it be deceptive and sinister?
By Tony Huynh
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References:
Gulas, Charles S. and Peter H. Bloch. “Right under Our Noses: Ambient Scent and Consumer Responses”. Journal of Business and Psychology. 10.1 (1995): 87-98. Print.
Morgan, Spencer. “Scent Branding Sweeps the Fragrance Industry”. Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P., 16 June 2010. Web. 6 May 2012.
O’Connor, Siobhan. “Is It Ethical To Scent Public Spaces?” Good. Good Worldwide, LLC, 21 June 2010. Web. 6 May 2012.
Rovzar, Chris. “Scent Company Plans To Perfume Entire South Bronx Low-Income Building To Make It Happy”. New York Mag. New York Media LLC, 17 June 2010. Web. 6 May 2012.
Sanburn, Josh. “NYC Grocery Store Pipes in Artificial
Smells”. Moneyland. Time Inc., 20
July 2011. Web. 6 May 2012.
“Smell
sells: scent marketing.” The Marketer.
Redactive Media Group, 19 Sept. 2011. Web. 6 May 2012.
