Sensory branding and Olfactory Marketing

Research shows that people rated a better-smelling product higher in completely unrelated performance areas. It has been observed that scents in hotel affects the hotel’s ratings for mostly unrelated topics like customer service, cleanliness, decor, and so on.

Several researches have proved that scent has a strong impact on product sales. In an experiment at a petrol station with a mini-mart attached to it, pumping around the smell of coffee saw purchases of the drink increase by almost 300 per cent. Also, scent enhances a product’s distinctiveness, which helps consumers remember it down the line. Thus scent plays a very important role in brand recall as well. Having a brand-specific aroma wafting through an environment is a good way to make a stronger, more memorable brand impression than signage alone.

This novel marketing tool is being used by growing number of businesses around the world. “Scent Marketing” in food retailing can involve techniques such as dispersing the aromas of products, or creating a specific mood through the use of scent. Some recent examples in the international context include the Bloom grocery chain, that has put up a scented billboard (created by ScentAir) that pumps out the smell of grilled steak to promote its new line of beef, or ice-cream chain Emack & Bolio’s, which sends out the scent of waffle cones at their shops. In India sensory branding is still in the nascent stage.

Another example is Starbucks. One of the keys to the phenomenal success of Starbucks has been that its stores offer a consistent and appealing sensory experience. The music, colors, and lighting are all important, but it has been found that the wonderful coffee aroma is what dominates one’s senses on entering a Starbucks outlet.

Starbucks was under pressure to increase store revenue and profits, and, they turned to sensory branding for the solution. The most startling change was that the firm went back to grinding coffee in its stores for the sole purpose of improving the coffee aroma. Presumably, it’s cheaper to ship the coffee pre-ground in sealed packages, but Starbucks management felt that any productivity loss at the stores will be offset by improved customer loyalty and higher sales due to the aroma. Starbucks also recently dumped its breakfast eggs because their smell didn’t pair well with the coffee aroma. This is a fairly amazing reason to drop what was supposed to have been a major growth product line, and shows that some companies really DO understand sensory marketing and branding.

Realising that majority of sensory experience of drinking espresso comes mainly from the retail environment, Nestle unit Nespresso not only modified its home brewing equipment to release more enticing smells, they even launched a chain of coffee shops offering customers a rich olfactory experience just to address the perceived sensory gap in the home environment.

Olfactory marketing works so well because the sense of smell is most directly connected to the parts of the brain responsible for processing emotions. It goes directly to the limbic system, which is the emotional control centre of the brain, so when you smell something it immediately triggers an emotion whereas all the other senses have to be processed first.