Aromas abound in today’s marketing mix. New technology means smell can be cheaply added to any environment with impressive results in terms of increased sales, according to Scent Marketing Institute acting co-president Steven Semoff.
Britain and Ireland’s biggest distributor of artificial smells, ScentAir UK, reports a booming fragrance fad. Managing director Christopher Pratt says “Since we formed in 2008, we’ve attracted 600 clients, but the most dramatic rise has happened in the past six months.”
Current successful smells for marketing include pina colada, which was used in children’s toy shop Hamleys this summer – Hamleys says it made parents linger longer – and the chocolate smell in the new M&M World store in London’s Leicester Square. “The goods these stores sell come pre-packaged, so there were no smells of chocolate, but there are now,” says Pratt.
Hotels are getting in on the act too, with Thistle, Holiday Inn and the Landmark, London all introducing fragrance into their marketing strategies. “Here, the focus is reception and common areas – it’s about creating something fresh, airy and welcoming which also reflects the brand in some way,” says Pratt.
Some surprising venues are using smell to increase dwell time. Casinos are increasingly demanding musky masculine fragrances that help keep men on the premises as long as possible, ScentAir reports, while ever more nightclubs are asking for tailored scents. “Smoking used to hide a multitude of sins, but the ban put a stop to that,” says Pratt.
Fresh food outlets have also got a whiff of the idea, increasingly pumping out artificial aromas suggesting everything from muffins to coffee.
Not just retail marketing
The Aroma Company founder Simon Harrop says that even direct mail has jumped on the bandwagon. “In one door drop for a laundry product, putting a fragrance on brand literature doubled the response rate compared to the non-scented equivalent. It’s made us realise there are B2B opportunities around smell.”
So why the sudden fragrance fad? Steven Semoff, acting co-president of the Scent Marketing Institute, believes it’s largely due to improvements in technology. “Nebulisation technology – through which a fragranced oil is converted into a dry vapour – has become more commercially viable and usable on a wider scale. Aromas can far more easily be distributed via a fan or air conditioning.”
Marketers are hearing the success stories, he adds. A study by Nike showed that adding scents in its stores increased intent to purchase by 80 per cent, while in another experiment at a petrol station shop pumping smells of coffee saw purchases of the drink increase by 300 per cent. All this, Semoff explains, for starting fees of as little as £100 a month.
Marketing emotion
“Brands are increasingly recognising that in order to wow consumers, they need to work on an emotional basis,” reports Harrop, who says the sense of smell goes directly to the limbic system, which is the emotional control centre of your brain, as opposed to all other senses, which have to be processed first.
“It’s no longer enough to build a rational proposition based on function, price or convenience,” he says. “Banks, airlines and the leisure industry are just a few of the sectors getting really excited about the prospect of incorporating smell into their brand and fast moving consumer goods are getting involved too – packaging that smells or eliminating aromas at the point of sale, for instance.”
New research is significant, believes Washington State University dean of the college of business Eric Spangenberg. “In retail environments, it used to be just colour, then colour and music, then the element of touch was studied and incorporated – and finally olfactory cues have been added. The biggest difference now has been the study in incorporation of multiple cues – that is, sight, sound and smell working together. With retailers and others needing to cut through the clutter to differentiate in these hard times, it’s no wonder they’re utilising this research to enhance their marketing strategy.”
Ethics of scent marketing
Despite the use of smell in marketing being nothing new, the more clever recent attempts have attracted some controversy. Earlier this year, Time magazine’s report about the artificial nature of aromas of chocolate and baked bread in the Net Cost grocery store in Brooklyn, New York, made many people feel duped. But Nottingham Business School marketing ethics expert Alex Hiller says, “Marketers do everything they can to create environments that help entice people to buy – that’s the whole point of a retail environment, for example. Since it doesn’t constrain anyone’s freedom, I’m not concerned about this on an ethical basis.”
Among the biggest mistakes marketers can make when using smell is making the smell too overpowering, failing to provide customer service that’s as good as the smell promises and simply getting the scent wrong – a sure way to drive customers away. Harrop adds that marketers using generic smells are wasting their money. “That just becomes white noise. The smell can only work if it builds on your brand by being unique and ownable.”
Comments
1. On 20/09/2011 at 11.50 benson wrote:
This is a terrific practice which i think Kenyan entrepreneurs should embrace especially hotels with foul dusters
2. On 20/09/2011 at 11.52 Ella Mathew wrote:
A few years ago I completed my MSc dissertation on the affect that celebrities have on their own branded of perfume. I found that as long as the celebrity had knowledge of the fashion industry, was liked by the public and had credability, then the perfume would sell. I think it would be really interesting to do further research into the ethical aspect of fragrances within the celebrity perfumes market.
3. On 20/09/2011 at 12.48 Mukoboto Brian wrote:
Scent marketing is indeed a great innovation, nonetheless the use of atificial aromas should match the customers expectation for value in the product bought. Some aromas tend to have a pleasant scent in the first minute but may evoke nausea in sensitive customers. Therefore pre-testing these aromas for such effects is necessary and very vital or you may end up facing legal suits and customer dissatisfaction.
4. On 20/09/2011 at 13.18 Tijjan Sule wrote:
Wow! I enjoyed your write up on scent marketing and I can relate to it because I personally think it makes a lot of sense, I know how I feel when I walk into a store and the sweet smell of bread baking in the oven makes me want to buy a loaf.
5. On 20/09/2011 at 13.40 Andy wrote:
It does work, I remember years ago doing some consultancy with a Caravan retailer; I proposed some aroma technology which they agreed to. The smell of fresh cut grass filled the showroom, and using it at the NEC later gave them the best ever show ever.
6. On 20/09/2011 at 15.15 Val M wrote:
Fantastic insights into innovative, exciting consumer engagement strategies that marketers are adopting....
7. On 21/09/2011 at 16.49 Chris wrote:
Fantastic article – please can we have more like this? Although nothing new, the choice of case studies is intriguing as I often think pineapple and coconut are very polarising (working in the flavours business) but Pina Colada in a toy store is really thought provoking in the way it promotes adult linger time whilst not being offensive to children....
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