Share |

Multisensory Marketing: Smells | Mind Power Blog - Mind Power: How To Change Reality in Your Favor

Multisensory Marketing: Smells

Thu Dec 16 18:29:25 2010

Using smells to enforce memories and elicit emotions.

You don't have to be an expert to know that a well designed flyer or catalogue will procure more sales than a spreadsheet of product names and prices printed on a plain, white sheet of paper. What about things affecting senses other than vision; olfactory, the sense of smell, in particular?

John Medina reports that a certain company boosted sales from a vending machine by 60% simply by making the machine emit chocolate smell; a boost of 50% was achieved by emitting waffle cone smell at the ice-cream shop. You can probably recall last time you smelt something delicious and felt the craving set in.

John Medina is not a marketing specialist, but a brain scientist; and he can explain the magic behind all those numbers. It turns out our sense of smell is quite special. When a signal arrives, every other sense must connect to a part of the brain called thalamus and ask for permission to connect to the rest of the brain, including the higher levels where perception occurs.

Not only our olfactory receptors directly exposed to the air, as opposed to being protected by cornea or the ear drum, the signal that arrives through our sense of smell bypasses the thalamus and goes directly to other parts of brains. One of those parts is called amygdala; it is responsible for emotions and emotional memory.

While the effect of food smells triggering cravings is quite familiar to us, is there more to it? Can we crave, say, PANTS if they smell good?

As surprising as it may be, turns out the answer is a definite "yes"; as long as you get the smell right.

In an experiment for a clothing store, investigators subtly wafted the smell of vanilla in the women's department, a scent known to produce a positive response among women. In the men's department, they diffused the smell of rose maroc, a spicy, honey-like fragrance that had been pre-tested on men. When the scents were deployed, sales doubled from their typical average in each department. However, when the scents were reversed - vanilla for men and rose maroc for women - sales plummeted below their typical average. Eric Spangenberd, a scientist in charge of the experiment, concluded that you can't just make your product smell nice and expect it to work; the smell has to be congruent.

Testing effects of smell on memory shows positive results as well: after learning while exposed to the rose scent, subjects were re-exposed to that scent while SLEEPING, and yet had 11% better recollection rate than the control group.

Smells can elicit strong emotions, pleasant memories, as well as strengthen the memories that are created while we smell something; and we can't even control these effects!

Can we use smells to affect how customers feel? Can a flyer make your customer remember you better due to the way it smells? Can a hand sanitizer flyer that SMELLS like hand sanitizer remind the customer of your company next time they are exposed to that smell? Can you spray a stack of air freshener flyers with that same air freshener and boost your sales?

These ideas might seem outlandish, but science seems to back them up. Perhaps, the best pendulum to hypnotize you is not the one that swings well, but the one that smells good.

(Source: "Brain Rules" by John Medina, pages 211-217)

Comments

Create new comment

Email is optional and will not be posted. Specify only if you wish me to contact you.