Smells Like Profit: Scents in Stores, on Products, Makes Shoppers Buy More

July 1, 2010 — -- Sony wants to make women feel welcome. That's why the electronics giant sprays its stores with a scent made of vanilla, mandarin, bourbon and other secret ingredients.

The scent wafts through the stores all day, diffused by electronic devices scattered in the store.

Gino Biondi, the chief marketing officer for ScentAir, the company that developed the scent for Sony and makes the diffusers, says the smell of vanilla puts women, typically intimidated by electronics, at ease, while the mandarin denotes class.

The bourbon is there for the guys.

"It basically enhances the environment for a first great impression," says Biondi, whose company serves everyone from Express clothing to Mandalay Bay Resorts. Retailers, hotels, and even car makers use scents, he says, to evoke certain moods that will make customers happier with the brand.

"It's very subtle," he says. "When it's done best, it's not overwhelming, just enough for someone to look around and say, 'It really smells nice.'"

Sony did not return a request for comment.

It's well known in marketing circles: Scents can have a powerful effect on consumer behaviour. After sound, scent is the second most powerful sense, experts say, and the only one of our five that bypasses the rational part of our brain to tap directly into our emotions. By spraying the right molecules into the air -- into their merchandise, or even onto their letterhead -- companies can make customers feel relaxed, energized, safe, young or sexy.

"Scent is amazingly influential in what we do and how we do things in a purchasing moment," says Martin Lindstrom, author of "Buyology: The Truth and Lies About Why We Buy."

Scents are not only very subliminal, triggering emotions in ways you would never expect, but they are also more memorable than other sensory experience.