Marketers Hope Smells Make You Pay Through the Nose

Nov. 15, 2006 — -- If your mailbox smells faintly of cheesecake or Jell-O, don't be surprised.

It's just part of an increased strategy by marketers to lead consumers by the nose.

In a marketing world where consumers actively avoid advertising, the industry is hoping smells will pull people back in.

This month, Kraft Foods is sponsoring a special edition of People magazine. Alongside childhood Christmas photos of stars like Justin Timberlake and David Spade, readers can take in the sights and smells of the season.

A full-page ad in the magazine for Philadelphia Cream Cheese contains a photo of strawberry cheesecake that smells like the real thing.

Other ads feature scented photos of cherry Jell-O, cinnamon-flavored coffee, and white-chocolate Chips Ahoy cookies -- all Kraft products.

Where readers may customarily flip past the dozens of magazine ads, the marketers hope the scented pitches give them reason to pay more than just passing attention.

The smells are released when readers scratch the photographs printed with scented ink.

"It is an attention-getter," said Kraft spokeswoman Renee Zahery. "We try to make it very memorable. If they see a scratch-and-sniff ad for a magical Jell-O dessert, they may want to try it."

Advertisers have long used magazines to transport pungent perfume ads with limited success. Kraft has paid close attention.

"We took great care in choosing scents that were pleasing," Zahery said.

Searching for New Ways to Reach Consumers

Magazines are certainly not the first to employ this multisensory advertising.

It's a tactic that has grown with the advent of devices like pop-up blockers and TiVo that allow consumers to ignore ads.

Marketers are looking for new ways to reach consumers who avoid traditional Web and TV ads.

"With so much advertising going on with sight and sound in retail space, scent is the final frontier," said Murray Dameron, marketing manager for ScentAir, a Charlotte, N.C.-based company that designs scents for retail stores and hotels.

"You want to create a pleasant environment that makes consumers want to come back. They may not realize why, but they'll want to be there," he said.

Scientific studies have proven that the power of smell can instantly evoke memories and emotion -- think of your grandmother's chocolate chip cookies.

"Certain scents can immediately transport you back to your childhood," Dameron said.

Retailers Want to Cash In on Scents

ScentAir says sales have grown tenfold over the last two years.

Part of the company's business is developing "signature scents" for stores and hotel chains, and the smell becomes part of the "brand."

For example, go into any Westin hotel, in America or around the world, and you will smell the same familiar white tea fragrance.

"It is the way the hotel can create a true sensory experience," Dameron said.

The cost of a customized smell? Anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000, depending on the scent's complexity.

Retailers are doing the same. Bloomingdales uses a baby powder scent in its children's department, a lilac fragrance in lingerie, and a coconut smell in the swimsuits section -- to evoke a day at the beach.

One of ScentAir's most popular smells, chocolate chip cookies, is frequently used by real estate agents as a way to make house hunters feel at home.

No one keeps track of just how much businesses spend on multisensory marketing, but Americans pay more than $8 billion a year for air fresheners and candles. These olfactory sales pitches hope to capitalize on that trend.

But just how effective is it? The truth is, no one is sure.

After ice cream parlor Emack & Bolio used a waffle cone scent to attract customers to its shop in the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, Fla., sales jumped by more than a third.

"In the presence of pleasant smells, you breathe deeply, so you relax more," said Pam Scholder Ellen, an associate professor of marketing at Georgia State University, who has studied the use of scents in marketing.

Scholder Ellen says odors affect the primitive part of the brain, but her studies cast doubt on the power of smell to alter consumer behavior.

"Whether it does something that makes you purchase a product, the evidence is not really clear," she said.

But that hasn't stopped marketers from looking for ways to connect with consumers -- using smell and even taste.

In Europe, ice cream maker Haagen Dazs teamed up with the Austrian Postal Service to launch a series of stamps that taste like ice cream.

Letter writers can lick stamps with flavors like cookies and cream, macadamia nut brittle, and strawberry cheesecake -- all calorie-free.

"It is all about breaking through the clutter -- getting the customer's attention, " Dameron said.

People's scent-infused magazine will be sent to only half of the magazine's subscribers.

The magazine will be sent to women between the ages of 25 to 54, who have families -- women, Kraft's marketers hope, who will take time to smell the magazine.