It may seem odd to add scent to products like sewing thread, automobile tires, and tennis balls, as some companies have done. But a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says scent helps consumers remember product information.

“Product scent may be particularly effective at enhancing memory for product information as a function of its ability to enhance a product’s distinctiveness within its surrounding context,” write authors Aradhna Krishna (University of Michigan), May Lwin (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), and Maureen Morrin (Rutgers University).

Scent enhances a product’s distinctiveness, which helps consumers remember it down the line, the authors found. And while ambient (atmospheric) scents seem to boost memory for all the objects encountered in the scented environment (product, signs, lighting, salespeople), it doesn’t much help people remember particular products.

In one study, the authors had 151 participants evaluate pencils that were unscented, scented with pine scent (common), or scented with tea tree scent (uncommon). “We found that the memory for the scented pencils was much greater than memory for the unscented pencils, and that this effect was especially pronounced after a time delay,” the authors write. They also found that participants’ memory of the uncommonly (tea tree) scented pencils was more resistant to decay.

In a second study, the authors compared the effectiveness of product scent to ambient scent. The researchers manipulated whether or not the target product (facial tissues) was scented and whether or not the room was scented. “We find again that when a product is scented, long-term memory for that product’s attributes increases, and further, that product scent is more effective than ambient scent at enhancing memory for product-related information,” the authors write.

“Our studies show that product scent significantly enhances recall of product information, and that this enhanced memory for product information persists over time — for at least two weeks after the time of exposure,” the authors write.

Aradhna Krishna, May Lwin, and Maureen Morrin. “Product Scent and Memory.” Journal of Consumer Research: June 2010 (published online December 4, 2009).

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Smell is a chemical sense tied to the emotional center of the brain. It a powerful sense. It can make us salivate, change our heart rate, attract us to a mate or stir our memories to the pleasureable times in our lives. Smell can also make us buy.

Businesses spend millions trying to attract and keep consumers through the sense of sight and hearing via television and print ads. Well, the savvy businesses are appealing to the sense of smell to persuade consumers to stop, smell and BUY the roses, cars and houses.

Scent Marketing is a growing trend in advertising. The power of scent is not fully understood but it has been applied with success to marketing virtually any type of product, including real estate. We are all familiar with the real estate agents’ long held belief that baking bread or chocolate chip cookies during an open house will help sell the house. Maybe the traditional spike in home sales in Spring is really due to hyacinths and daffodils.

Studies have shown that a scented environment leads to consumers staying longer, and spending more. A study of Las Vegas slot players showed they spent 45% more in a scented environment than those in an unscented one. Nike shoes received a better evaluation in a scented room. A vanilla aroma was used in NYC’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to reduce anxiety in patients before MRIs—and it worked. Perhaps brokerages could try vanilla air fresheners in their offices to calm anxious home buyers.

The secret of scent is it can create a “flow state“, where one loses the normal sense of time and is totally consumed in the event. The flow state can last up to several minutes.
So how are companies using scent to sell? They may use scents that highlight their products (candles, coffee, flowers) or some other unrelated aroma, known as “ambient scent”.

Stew Leonard keeps his oven running so that customers smell the baked goods. He also roasts almonds and has the aroma blown throughtout the store by fan. Omni Hotels has a lemon grass & green tea scent pumped into its lobbies and public spaces. Plaza Athenee in NYC chose lavendar & citrus. A pleasant mood makes for a pleasant customer who is likely to return to repeat the experience. Rolls Royce reproduced the scent of its great seller, the 1965 Silver Cloud, and sprays it under the seats to recreate the scent of this classic “Roller”.

Some businesses have gone so far as to try to create a “scent brand” for themselves. The theory is that consumers will associate a scent with a particular brand so that the scent recalls the brand to the consumer. (Cinnabon comes to nose mind). Samsung is working on a “technological” aroma to create a seductive electronics environment for its customers.

These signature scents have served as the basis for attempts to trademark a smell. Although difficult (how do you sniff out infringing smells?), it has been done. Like color before it (Owings-Corning owns the color pink for insulation), smell marks can be legally attached to a brand. In the EU, smell marks have been registered for protection. The first was a Dutch company who trademarked a fresh cut grass scent for use on tennis balls (Wimbledon?), another smell mark went to rose scented tires, & another for the smell of bitter beer applied to flying darts.

Singapore Airlines has gone so far as to patent a scent of lotus flowers and bamboo forests that is worn by flight attendants and put on hot towels handed to passengers before takeoff. Could that be the reason for their continued high marks from consumers.

Before you decide to use this smell science, be aware that there are cultural biases attached to favored scents. For the Dogon tribe of Mali, the scent of onion is a most attractive fragrance, and fried onions is rubbed on the body as a perfume. Japanese are said to prefer apple. In a Moscow poll, the favorite aroma was “freshly washed clothes, hanging on a line in subzero weather”.

We all know buyers who prefer new construction over resales. Could it be they are attracted to the “new house smell” as car buyers are to the new car smell? Hmm..I smell an idea for a product.