February 19th 2009
Founder and Neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, Dr. Alan Hirsch, recently conducted research on whether the perception of body weight could be affect by scent.
A 179cm, 111kgs, woman was used as a model for the experiment.
A group of 199 males were split into four groups, three of the groups were designated a different fragrance, the fourth group was the controlled group. Dr. Hirsch created three different scent perfume sprays. Scent 1 was citrus floral, scent 2 was a mixture of sweet pea and lily of the valley and scent 3 was a combination of floral and spices. The three scents were assigned to the three male subgroups.
One of these scents was sprayed on the woman each day. Each male subgroup was then asked to look at the woman and make an estimation of her weight.
The conclusion was that among the men tested, neither scent 1 or 2 had an affect on the perception of weight. Scent 3 showed notable reduction in the perception of the woman’s weight by an average of 2kgs. The men who found the floral and spice scent pleasant perceived the woman to be a full 6kgs less than her actual weight.
For more information on smell and taste research visit scienceofsmell.com/
February 14th 2009
Commit to your scent marketing program. Believe it or not, the main hindrance to successful scent marketing is poor tracking.
Evaluating the “before-during-after” scenario is crucial but often neglected. If you use, say, scent marketing to promote the sales of flowers in a supermarket then you have to capture (over a certain time period) and record the sales in the unscented environment. Then do the same during the scented period. For curiosity’s sake you may discontinue the use of scent altogether and see what happens. Were you able to successfully lay a scent track to the flower department? Did you generate loyalty and repeat purchases? How about playing with the price? Can you maintain an increase? There are plenty of scenarios you can play as long as your store and inventory management is plugged in.
You may want to push scent through your front door the same way some stores blow cold air on the sidewalk on a steamy day. A simple electronic people counter on the door can tell you if you were successful in doing so. Now the traffic is there, what do you do with it? Unless you have enough sales staff or product on hand you will not be able to increase your sales and capitalize on your scent marketing effort. You may even end up with a frustrated consumer.
Unless you keep close tabs on the results you will never find out if scent marketing makes sense for you. It would not be fair to give it a bad name only because efficiency has not been measured. The biggest issue with installed systems is not reliability of the delivery system itself but that the consumables are not replaced as required. Once you have made a commitment you need to stay with it and instruct your staff accordingly so they do not see it as a nuisance but an important component of your marketing.
Courtesy of Branding Strategy Insider.
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