Scent Marketing Blog

Consumers are savvy, busy, and let’s face it, just plain hard to pin down so you can advertise to them. This results in the increasing need and appeal of ambient advertising which gets to the consumers’ subconscious. Until recently, the only truly efficient guaranteed form of ambient advertising was through Instore Radio advertising. But thankfully, those crafty scientists have come up with something new. Scent Marketing.

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Jean Touitou, founder of A.P.C., never thought he would create a perfume. Until he met essential oil perfumist Haley Alexander Van Oosten in L.A. After trying one of her essential oil blends and liking the idea of a little glass bottle inside a wood container, Touitou decides otherwise.

The end result is Sustain, a balanced blend of 12 essential oils like a 12-string guitar. Sustain is based on the idea of the smell of a guitar case lined in velvet in which rose petals have been scattered. With a reassuring persistence, the scent of Sustain lasts the perfect amount of time.

To launch Sustain in its stores in Paris, New York and L.A., A.P.C. partnered with Air Aroma to diffuse a derivative version of Sustain through Air Aroma’s stylish Aroslim diffusers. The result is a subtle scent lingering throughout the stores, clearly leaving Touitou’s mark.

Strong and metallic – for NASA engineer and astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who is on board US space shuttle Discovery, that is what the final frontier smells like.

“There is one smell up here that is really unique though and that is the smell, we just call it ‘the smell of space’.

“I haven’t had a chance to do a spacewalk yet … but when the other guys did and they came back in … there’s this really, really strong metallic smell.

“It’s really cool.”

For rookie astronaut Kevin Ford, Discovery’s pilot, both the sounds and smells of space have surprised him.
“It’s like … something I haven’t ever smelled before, but I’ll never forget it,” Space.com reported him saying.

“You know how those things stick with you.”

On Discovery firing up its manoeuvring thrusters, he said: “It definitely gives the shuttle a kick and you just feel a little twang throughout the whole orbiter when they’re firing to keep you in position,” he said.
Chamitoff and Ford are among 13 astronauts on board the International Space Station and US space shuttle Discovery. Astronauts from Discovery have concluded a third and final spacewalk, installing new equipment on the International Space Station, though failing to connect some of the cables.

NASA astronaut Danny Olivas and his European Space Agency colleague Christer Fuglesang of Sweden concluded the more than seven-hour walk at 11.40pm on Saturday (1.40pm AEST on Sunday), the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

According to the announcement, they completed their major objectives, but not all of them.

The spacewalkers deployed a new payload attachment system, replaced a failed gyro assembly, installed two GPS antennae and did some work to prepare for the installation of the Node 3 “Tranquility” module next year.
“During connection of one of two sets of avionics cables for Node 3, one of the connectors could not be mated,” NASA said in a statement. “All other cables were mated successfully.”

Built in Italy by the European Space Agency, Node 3 “Tranquility” is scheduled to be flown to the ISS next February. It contains the most advanced life support systems designed to recycle waste water and generate oxygen. On Friday, Fuglesang and Olivas installed a liquid ammonia tank to keep the space station cool and completed several other tasks.

The spacewalkers also moved a spent ammonia tank, which was removed Wednesday, into the shuttle’s cargo bay to be taken back to Earth. With this week’s outing Fuglesang – who was the first Swede in space in December 2006 – became the first astronaut from outside the United States or Russia to participate in more than three spacewalks.

The duo also fetched US and European equipment from the orbiting station’s Columbus laboratory that will be brought back to scientists on Earth. Earlier, a large piece of space debris drifted toward the ISS, but NASA said it would not affect the mission’s spacewalks.

The shuttle brought 7.5 tonnes of supplies, including new station crew quarters, a freezer, two research racks and a treadmill named after US comedian Stephen Colbert, to the station. The freezer will store samples of blood, urine and other materials that will eventually be brought back to Earth for study on the effects of zero-gravity. The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill (COLBERT) is the ISS’s second treadmill. Exercise is key for astronauts spending long periods of time in space, where zero-gravity can result in muscle atrophy.

Colbert originally won an online poll for NASA to name a new space station room after him, but the US space agency decided to instead name the new module Tranquility and allow the satirist to have his name placed on the treadmill.

The mission for Discovery, currently orbiting with the ISS 354 kilometres above the Earth, is the fourth of five planned for the shuttle program this year. The last is scheduled for November.
The shuttle will remain docked at the ISS until Tuesday, and is due to return to Earth on September 10.
Once the mission is complete, just six more shuttle flights remain before NASA’s three shuttles are retired in September 2010.

Mitsubishi’s ad agency, OMD, placed a fragrance ad in two major newspapers that simulated the leather smell that so many consumers associate with a brand new car. As a result, the Lancer Evo X sold out in two weeks and Mitsubishi’s annual sales increased 16% in a market that averaged a 20% decline. By giving prospective buyers an interactive, scent inducing experience, Mitsubishi caused consumers to relive the emotions attached to a new car and saw impressive results.

Scent marketing doesn’t have to be complex. Even the most subtle aroma can act as a scent marketing strategy, envoking emotions and triggering memories. One of my favourite restaurants always has a big bunch of lilies at the entrance. Without fail, every time I smell lilies, I think of this particular restaurant – and what I’m going to eat next time I’m there! The last time I went there, they had no lilies… so it would seem this isn’t part of a greater scent marketing strategy.

The Scent Marketing Institute, “provider of information and education about the benefits, development and implementation of Scent Branding efforts and scent-centered marketing strategies”, is hoping to capture the smell of Las Vegas:

Harald H. Vogt, Founder of the Scent Marketing Institute and organizer of the SCENTworld Conference & Expo, announced today that a team of leading Scent Marketing and Multi-Sensory Branding experts is collaborating to develop the “Scent of Las Vegas” which will be officially revealed at SCENTworld Conference & Expo 2009.

Top executives from the Las Vegas business community, the City of Las Vegas, and the Vegas Airport Authority are asked to assist in capturing everything that the city stands for — in a fragrance. Representatives will be present at the unveiling during a Gala Dinner on November 20th, 2009.

“SCENTworld is the only global conference on the use of fragrances for non-traditional purposes such as marketing and branding. We will make a long lasting impression on Vegas, unlike any other conference ever in the city’s history”, says Harald Vogt “for we are leaving behind the new Signature Scent of Las Vegas. It is the ideal medium to capture and transmit the soul of the city, defining it as a world-class brand.”

The fragrance itself is being developed by perfumer Christophe Laudamiel, who also developed a set of fragrances for the World Economic Forum last year. Laudamiel will also deliver the keynote address at the ScentWorld Expo (”Scent Marketing, a view from the top”), which takes place in November.