Scent-sational

By Erika D. Smith
Indianapolis Star
February 24, 2006

There's nothing like the smell of money.

Except maybe lemongrass with just a hint of green tea.

Or a chocolaty mochachino.

Or freshly baked pumpkin pie.

Those are the smells that bring in money. Just ask hotel and retail chains across the country, including those right here in Indianapolis.

A growing number of companies are targeting consumers' sense of smell to market brands and products in an almost subliminal way. They're hiring scent marketers, who concoct odors and serve them up using blowers strategically placed in public places.

Downtown's Omni Severin Hotel lets the scent of lemongrass and green tea drift across its lobby. For a while, Indianapolis-based HHGregg did the same thing, blowing the smell of baked goods over its appliance department.

The scents are designed to be subtle, even unnoticeable. Most companies want to create a signature smell that people will forever associate with their brand -- a marketing strategy that focuses on building long-term, positive relationships with customers.

But sometimes companies just want a spike in sales and aren't looking to create a scent identity. The Omni Severin is doing that with its 40 West Coffee Cafe. Earlier this week, Bob Schwartz, of Spokane, Wash., didn't even know the smell of mochachino was floating above his head while eating at the cafe.

When a reporter pointed it out, the guest of the Omni Severin, which owns the coffee shop, seemed surprised, then thoughtful.

The smell of flavored coffee "makes me think about it," he said. "No, it wouldn't make me buy it."

He had a coffee cup sitting right next to him.

Bloomingdale's tries to catch customers the same way. The baby departments of some stores smell like baby powder. Kroger, Macy's, Parisian and dozens of other companies do it, too.

Think about that the next time you smell something good wafting through the mall.

But don't worry if you suddenly feel a little like Bugs Bunny being lured out of your rabbit hole by Elmer Fudd dangling a carrot. Scent marketing has been going on for years.

But until recently, it was about as poorly researched and badly executed as a Fudd plot.

"It's not new, but it's sort of being looked at it again with a fresh eye," said Deborah Mitchell, an adjunct associate professor of marketing at the University of Chicago who has done two studies on aroma and retail.

Now researchers across the country are studying the effectiveness of scent marketing. But compared with research on the other four senses, studies of smell are relatively new, she said. That's because studying how a consumer will react to specific odors is difficult.

Scent marketing is not an exact science. In some ways, buying into it means believing what has been asserted for decades: Pleasant scents create pleasant moods. But figuring out what scents are "pleasant" to most people is the real challenge.

"You read: 'Just put some good smells out there, and good things will happen,'" Mitchell said. "It's more complex than one might predict."

Variables abound. No two people smell the same scent in the same way. And a person never experiences a smell the same way twice.

Also, odors are inextricably linked to people and events in a person's long-term memory. Therefore, consumers' reactions to the same smell may vary wildly. The scent of a campfire pumped into a sporting goods store, for example, may remind one consumer of happy vacations with the family and another of a forest fire that destroyed his home.

Companies that are betting specific scents will get specific results are gambling, said Michele Williams, founder of the essential oils and natural products retailer AromaRx.

"It'd be a very expensive trial and error," said Williams, who also is a pharmacist.

The impact on sales is, at the least, difficult to distinguish from other factors and, more often, impossible to track.

But the same variables that make the sense of smell so unpredictable also make it powerful when companies get it right.

Imagine if every time a person gets a whiff of a scent, he can't help but think of one company.

That's what Stephen Rosenstock had in mind when he ordered the smell of lemongrass and green tea pumped into 38 Omni hotels, including the Omni Severin in Indianapolis. The senior vice president of brand standards wanted to create a signature scent for the chain.

"We were looking for something that was universal across the brand," he said. "We wanted to provide a scent that the customer wouldn't really know was a scent, something that was really clean and fresh."

Omni wants customers to check out and not know what made their stay so comfortable -- the look of rooms, the feel of the beds, the smell of lobby.

"You want them all to be working together in unison," Rosenstock said. "You don't want one to overpower the others."

Since December, the hotels have received good feedback on the scent, although many customers thought it was coming from flowers, not blowers.

Omni took a more direct approach in the coffee shops attached to each of its hotels. The scent of mochachino wafts freely, practically begging customers to upgrade their latte with some mocha flavor.

Unlike the signature scent in Omni lobbies, which is more about building the brand than renting more rooms, the chain wanted tangible results from the mochachino scent.

"We've certainly seen an increase in incremental revenue," said Rosenstock, former general manager of Omni Severin and creator of the 40 West Coffee Cafe. He wouldn't give specifics.

HH Gregg also was looking for tangible results when it decided to shoot the smell of baked goods over the appliance departments of five stores.

"We would have basic kitchen smells. Depending on the time of year, it would be pumpkin pie, sugar cookies," said Jim Newell, spokesman for the appliance and consumer electronics chain. "Smells that would make the customer feel comfortable in the store."

After about a year and a few cursory studies, Gregg shelved the project, which Newell called a test.

Sales increased, but the company "didn't spend a whole lot of time" developing studies that would determine whether the smells made the difference.

"It wasn't really a huge expense, but it was one that we couldn't justify," Newell said.

The expense is less than $100 a month for most retailers, said David Van Epps, president of ScentAir Technologies, based in Charlotte, N.C.

ScentAir, the nation's top scent marketing company, has worked with Gregg, and still works with Omni, Bloomingdale's, Sony and a number of other companies.

Clients of ScentAir rent its ScentWave blower machines, which fit above doorways and in ventilation systems, out of sight. The blowers work with any of about 1,500 scents, Van Epps said. Which one ScentAir recommends depends on what the retailer or hotelier is after.

Companies that get the most out of scent marketing are into signature smells, Van Epps said. They want to enhance a brand, which is more about intangible customer loyalty than tangible dollars and cents.

Ironically, it may be dollars and cents that are driving companies to add scents.

In this price-driven economy, companies are looking for any edge they can find, said the University of Chicago's Mitchell. They're looking for ways to keep customers and gain new ones.

"How can we appeal to the consumer on more than just price?" she asked rhetorically.

The answer, Van Epps said, is a simple as apple pie. Or the smell of it anyway.

Companies have to provide a "sensory experience" -- sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.

"It's like: Why did you pick the marble floor versus linoleum?" he asked. "I think intuitively, you know it will help."

ScentAir Technologies Inc, founded in 2000, is the leading provider of aroma marketing solutions for brands and retailers. ScentAir enables businesses to create a unique in-store experience by engaging memory and emotions through patented scent delivery systems. Proven to enhance the appeal of any environment, these pioneering scent machines can be customized to reflect even the most challenging environment or brand. ScentAir is a privately held company located in Charlotte, NC.

For additional information contact Murray Dameron at 704-504-2320.