Maureen Morrin – Associate Professor of Marketing
Maureen Morrin of the school of business at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in Camden and colleagues tested the effects of smell on the spending habits of mall shoppers. They pumped a ‘pleasant citrus’ odor throughout a mall in Montreal, Canada, then intercepted shoppers on their way out of the mall and quizzed them on their spending. They divided the shoppers into two categories: the ‘contemplative’ ones who said they normally only purchased planned items and the ‘impulsive’ purchasers, who claimed to be more whimsical in their spending. Morrin was surprised to find that the light, pleasant odor had no impact on the impulse buyer, but it did boost the spending of the contemplative shoppers by about 14 per cent compared to others who browsed without the scent. While the result was not dramatic, marketers viewed it as a positive trend.
