New Technology Delivers Scent at POS and Beyond

Scentevents has come out with a new computer controlled technology to deliver multiple scents on cue, activated by motion sensor or requested by the user. The patent pending device, which is commercially available now, is called the 4D scent media player.

The 4D scent player can work with scent diffusion devices provided by ScentEvents or with third party diffusers. The idea is that large brands can integrate the power of scent into their other marketing communications. For example, a company can set up a free standing kiosk in a mall or other public area that runs an ad or video or even a series of them for different products. The scent can be timed to coincide with the image on the screen to emphasize the visual and audio marketing message. Another option is to allow the user to interactively choose the scent they want to smell. Or, depending on the location and application of the system, the scents can be placed on a loop so that they are released on a timer. Different smells can be combined to create a large range of fragrances in the same device.

The natural product for this device is perfumes and scented personal products, since it would allow customers to sample the scents before buying, and thereby spur more sales. However, its uses are limited only by the imagination.

We know that scent is uniquely effective in provoking memories and emotion. Travel companies like cruise lines, resorts and airlines can incorporate the smell of seasonal destinations (pina colada, salt air, refreshing cold air for ski resorts, etc.). Hotels can use their signature scents, reminding previous guests of their stays and inducing a feeling in keeping with the hotel's ambiance and branding. Restaurants can make patrons hungry using tempting food smells, and malls can increase holiday spending with pine and other seasonal scents.

You can contact Scentevents for more information and pricing.

New York Grocery Chain Implements Scent in Multiple Areas

Supermarket Chain NetCost Market has launched scent marketing in its Brooklyn and Staten Island stores, and plans to install scent machines in all of its stores.

NetCost uses specific food fragrances to stimulate sales in its different departments. The meat department has the scent of smoky bacon, while the produce area smells like grapefruit or strawberry. Managers have also tested other food scents like chocolate in the candy aisle and rosemary focaccia in the bakery and have been very happy with the results.

Sales have steadily been going up of products in the scented areas. A NetCost spokeswoman said that, "Because of the scents, I think fruit sales are up probably 7 to 8 percent." Other areas, like the bakery and candy sections were added later, and sales are climbing there too.

Nightclub Scenting Replaces Cigarette Smell

Clubs worldwide are faced with a smelly dilemma. In the old days, nightclubs smelled like cigarette smoke, but in many entertainment venues, smoking has been banned. You might think this is a good thing, since most people agree that cigarette smoke smells bad. However, without the strong masking odor of smoke, a lot of other even less pleasant odors are noticeable including body odor, stale beer and vomit.

Researchers in the Netherlands decided to test how people would respond to ambient scenting in nightclubs since club owners are looking for a solution to their smelly situation. They infused three different scents into separate dance clubs: orange, peppermint and seawater, and compared results to the same clubs in an unscented condition. About 850 young club goers were given short questionnaires asking them to rate the quality of the evening, the music, the club and their feelings.

Consistently, those in the scented environment reported that the music was better, the club was more fun, and their mood was more cheerful than in the unscented clubs. Scent also increased the dancing activity in the clubs. The researchers were surprised to see that there was no significant difference between reactions to the different scents; all of the scents had roughly the same effect.

The scientists concluded that ambient scenting is somthing that nightclub owners can use to differentiate themselves from competitors, increase visitor return rate and boost revenue. Scents should correlate with the lights and music, so that high arousal music is paired with stimulating scent. Some innovative clubs are now using "aroma jockeys" who generate and disperse multiple smells throughout the evening that are congruent with the music that is playing.

New Australian Stamp Scented With Eucalyptus

This month, Australia is going to release a new postage stamp scented with eucalyptus, a native plant down under. The scent could potentially liven up the hobby of stamp collectors as well as effectively promote local agriculture to recipients of mail using the scented stamp.

The Australia Post had been planning a horticultural series, highlighting products derived from native plants including eucalyptus oil, tea tree oil, bush honey and macadamia nuts when it was pitched on the scented stamp idea by a print firm named Ego. It was a natural for the Post to add the distinctive scent of eucalyptus to the planned design.

Ego used a process it calls Scentprint whereby the scent is encapsulated into tiny bubbles in a printable varnish. It is meant to be long lasting, only releasing the scent when the surface is rubbed. The company had previously used this technology to add appeal to magazine covers.

Tests were done to ensure that the gum and paper would not be adversely effected by the special varnish, and that it was completely safe for people to smell, lick and touch.

Scratch 'N Sniff Card Enhances TV Show

BBC in the United Kingdom has partnered with The Aroma Co. to distribute scratch 'n sniff cards to go with their new television show, Filthy Cities. The show will show viewers what it was like in European cities of the past before widespread sanitation.

Residents and visitors to these cities hundreds of years ago had to deal with rotting corpses, bedpans, sewage and a variety of other unpleasant smells. These smells can now come to life to modern viewers thanks to the scratch 'n sniff cards that BBC and the Aroma Co. will be distributing throughout local UK libraries. The cards will be available April 1st.

Billed as "smellovision" this is the first time that smell will be available to the small screen in this low-tech format. BBC is betting that the cards will spark interest in the program and that viewers will be willing to subject themselves to the noxious odors from the past.

Scents Can Help Residents of Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities

Because scent recalls memories and affects mood, it can be very beneficial for senior citizens who live in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. These facilities, in general, tend to have a musty, hospital type smell which contributes to the low spirits of their residents. A scent solution, whether it is limited to certain areas or is connected to the air conditioning system, can help. Although the sense of smell diminishes somewhat with age, it is still a powerful way to reach those who are infirm, and even those with severe dementia. For patients with Alzheimer's, more recent memory is usually impaired, but older memories may still be available.

In a study, researchers found that 86.8% of those born after 1930 had olfactory-evoked recall, and 61.3% of older respondents who were born before 1930. (Nostalgia: A Neuropsychiatric Understanding; Alan R. Hirsch 1992)

Although the most common memory-related scent is baked goods, nostalgic scents tend to differ by region where the respondents grew up. For those on the east coast of the US, it was flowers; south - fresh air, midwest - farm animals and west coast - barbecued meat brought the memories flooding back. In other countries, scents particular to those regions did the same.

Other scents that can be used in the nursing home setting include citrus to improve mood and lavender to calm agitated residents.

Using Scent in Advertising - Mitsubishi Case Study

Sales Are Depressed When Consumers Feel Pigeonholed…But Scent Can Help

A recent study from the University of Minnesota, Yonsei Universtity in Korea, and Concordia University, Montreal found that when consumers are concerned about feeling stereotyped, they buy less. Consumers who are members of a group that are subject to a negative stereotype hesitate to buy from those company representatives who are outside the group.

The study focused on women as the group and brought up the stereotype “women aren’t good at math” before the subjects were to meet with a financial advisor. Sales were lower when these women met with men as opposed to with women. The researchers found that the subjects did not even have to believe in the stereotype themselves, but merely be aware that there was one that they might be judged by.

The experiment was repeated with auto repair and auto purchases with the stereotype of “women don’t know about cars,” with the same result. Subjects reported higher anxiety when meeting with a sales person outside of their group (females), and were reluctant to purchase.

Interestingly, the presence of a soothing scent, in this case vanilla, relieved the subjects’ anxiety and neutralized the anxiety caused by the anticipation of being stereotyped.

The lesson for companies trying to sell to people who may feel pigeonholed? Be proactive and calm their anxieties using scent. You’ll see a big boost to your bottom line!

Can Fragrance Make Us Better People?

A four-week study in the Netherlands found that the scent of oranges calmed violent criminals, and resulted in less aggression and fewer fights.

The head of police social services in Rotterdam, Herma Heester, said: "It's amazing, fighting in the cells has been dramatically reduced and we are using 10 per cent fewer sedation drugs". ("Violent Criminals Calmed by Scent of Oranges" The Telegraph, Feb. 23, 2011)

Another study found that people in scented environments are more likely to help a stranger. When exposed to pleasant odors, such as baking cookies or roasting coffee, people in a large shopping mall were more likely to help someone by retrieving a dropped pen or providing change for a dollar than in an unscented environment. Participants also reported being in a better mood in the presence of scent. (Study: "The Sweet Smell of...Helping: Effects of Pleasant Ambient Fragrance on Prosocial Behavior in Shopping Malls" by Robert A. Baron, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)


The use of scent for social reasons has almost unlimited applications. Imagine using a pleasant scent in preschools to encourage cooperation, in airports to reduce anxiety, and at charity functions to boost fundraising. Scent...it's not just for selling anymore!

Scent Marketing Primer

Newly laundered clothes hanging on a clothes lines, chocolate chip cookies that just got out of the oven, vanilla, grass cut just a few hours ago, a pine forest, a rose garden, freshly baked bread, the salty tang of an ocean breeze, cool fresh air on a spring morning... Speaking of all those, are they starting to trigger some sort of pleasant memory or feeling when you smell them?

It's important that you know that smell is a chemical sense that is tied to the emotional center of the brain. One of the most powerful senses, able to not only to make us salivate, attract us to someone or stir our memories, but it can also change our heart rate and other physiological measures. But that's not all - it can also make us open our wallets to buy something.

Using the senses of sight and hearing, businesses all over the world spend millions every year trying to attract new customers via print ads and TV. However, the real savvy businesses out there are also using the sense of smell to persuade their customers to stop, smell and buy the roses, cars, and houses.

One of the fastest growing trends in advertising is scent marketing. And even though it's not fully understood yet by the majority of businesses, the power of scent has already been successfully applied and can be applied to almost every type of product. Real estate agents know that baking bread or chocolate chip cookies during an open house is going to help sell it. And also, chances are that the sudden spike in home sales during the spring is due to the delicious smells of the blooming hyacinths and daffodils.

Many studies from all over the world have shown that a scented environment makes consumer spend more time and money in that location. A recent study in Las Vegas showed that people spent more time more and spent 45% more money in a scented environment than in an unscented one. In another study, consumers rated a product more favorably and were willing to spend more money for it in a scented room, versus the same exact product in an unscented room.

The secret behind scent is that it creates a "flow state" that leads people to temporarily lose their normal sense of time and become totally consumed in the occurring event. It can last up to several minutes.

So how are major companies out there using fragrance to increase sales? Some use scents that are naturally present in the environment like a bakery funneling the scent of baking bread from the oven area to the front of the shop. Those establishments that are not able to capitalize on their innate smells can create an environment with any fragrance their heart desires, through introducing ambient scent.

A pleasant smell puts the customer in a pleasant, buying mood and increases the chance that of becoming a repeat customer. For instance, Omni Hotels pumps a lemongrass and green tea scent into its lobbies and public places. Rolls Royce was seeing a drop off in customer perception of its cars, even though mechanically, they were the same or better. After investigating, they found the source of the dissatisfaction: the smell! Customers associated the smell of the classic 1965 Silver Cloud with quality, and when the Rolls Royces stopped smelling like this, the satisfaction dropped. Now, Rolls Royce has reproduced the smell of the Silver Cloud and they spray it under the seats in all of their new cars to protect their brand.

Similarly, Singapore Airlines has consistently gotten high marks from consumers in part because they use sensorial marketing to immerse passengers in the smell of a bamboo forest as well as lotus flowers. The fragrance is worn by flight attendants and put on hot towels that are handed to passengers before takeoff.

If your business involves any kind of location, whether retail, hospitality, healthcare, or entertainment, it just makes "scents" to incorporate our most powerful sense: the sense of smell.

Remember That Great Hotel?...Using Scent for Hospitality Branding

Over and over again, research has confirmed that our sense of smell is directly linked to our memories and emotions, both powerful factors in branding. Brands that consumers strongly associate with a positive emotion are successful, generating increased dollar sales, repeat sales and customer referrals. Memory, too, plays an important part of the branding experience, helping customers to identify and recall the brand name as well as specific product features and benefits. In order to strengthen their brands, numerous hotels have enlisted the aid of scent branding.

Just as a logo symbolically represents the company, hotels are appealing to the powerful sense of smell by creating “scent logos,” signature scents for their properties. The custom scents are based on the hotel’s ambiance and the emotions they want guests to associate with the hotel.

For example, the Mandarin Oriental uses a mandarin blossom tea scent to evoke not only its décor, but also its name. St. Regis wants guests feel like they are arriving at a lovely home, furnished by Mrs. Astor. Their signature scent includes roses and sweet peas, Mrs. Astor’s favorite flowers, mixed with a touch of Mr. Astor’s tobacco.

Le Meridien hotels wanted to unify its properties to be of a consistent quality and feel, appealing to creative people like artists, architects, designers, and chefs. Now, upon entering the hotel doors, guests experience a whiff of old books, leather, and wood sweetened with vanilla.

Hyatt hotels scent each of their properties, and take this strategy one step further. For their upscale Park Hyatt brand, each individual location has its own unique scent to emotionally bind guests to the property and distinguish it from others, even within the Park Hyatt family.

Senior vice president of Westin Hotels & Resorts summed it up nicely, “Scent is most closely tied to memory, and if we’re in the business of creating memories and wanting our guests to choose Westin whenever they travel, we have to make a memory link.”[1]

So far, most hotels confine their scent to the lobby areas and casinos. Some sell candles with the hotel’s signature scent in their gift shops, but there are many more applications for scent in hospitality. Technology now exists to make scenting guest rooms feasible. Hotels can also make good use of scented paper to send advertisements to their frequent guests in advance of common vacation times, to awaken the wonderful memories of their last vacation. The results for using scent in hospitality are positive; now we have to expand on its use.

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[1] “The Sweet Smell of the Modern Hotel,” Chandler Burr, Travel and Leisure, June 2008

New Device Brings Scent to Home Entertainment

Scent Sciences has released ScentScape(R) a digital scent delivery machine that connects to a user's home PC or gaming console to deliver smells relevant to the action.  Scents include pine forest, ocean, flowers and smoke. The scent is delivered via 20 different scent cartridges, which are included with the unit, and the company says that the cartridges last 200 hours or more, depending on usage. The idea is to more completely immerse the player in the game and enriching the gaming experience. Units retail for $69.99.

In addition, the company sells the ScentEditor(R), which allows you to custom choose scents to your home movie viewing. The focus is on nostalgic scents, such as roasting turkey, freshly mowed grass and birthday cake to evoke viewers' memories. All devices are plug and play.

Just imagine, with surround sound, 3D and smell, your home entertainment is only missing the sensation of touching the people and characters on the screen. But, with some of the violent games, that just might be a good thing.

Love Is in the Air

With Valentine’s Day approaching, the topic of love is something on everyone’s mind. And since scent is the only sense that directly is tied to the emotional center of the brain, it makes “scents” to talk about the fragrance of love.

Pheromones are chemical scents released in order to attract the opposite sex. They are not smelled in the same way as a fragrance, but with specialized receptors inside the nose. Pheromones are well known to work among various species of animals, however, their effectiveness in human sexual attraction is somewhat controversial. Some scientists say that human beings have “outgrown” the need for such chemical markers in choosing a mate through evolution, while others maintain their continued relevance.

Science has confirmed that people do sniff out potential love interests by gravitating to those with opposite natural immunities within our genetic makeup. The reason is that the resulting offspring will be stronger because of the combination of immunities. A Brazilian study found that, when women were given unwashed t-shirts worn by men, they rated the smell more pleasant for those men who had opposite MHC.[1]

Interestingly, when people marry those with differing MHC, (major histocompatibilty complex, which transmits information about immunities), they tend to have better, more loving and longer lasting relationships than those with similar MHC.

However, when women are on birth control pills, they tend to choose partners with the same MHC as theirs. The reason, scientists say, is that the pill tricks the body into thinking that it is pregnant, and for a pregnant woman, it is safer to surround herself with males who are family members. Women who form relationships with MHC similar men are more likely to feel sexually unsatisfied and cheat on their partners.[2]

So, assuming that you have found your perfect match, what scents can rev up the romance? Traditional romantic fragrances include roses, musk and chocolate. A study confirmed that people are, indeed, sexually/romantically stimulated by scent. However, the kinds of scents that work may surprise you. The top scent for male stimulation was a combination of pumpkin pie and lavender, followed by a licorice/doughnut blend. Women like to wear sexy perfumes with musk, but tend to be aroused more by the musk than the men.

Aromatherapy identifies a number of scents that act as an aphrodisiac, including basil, jasmine, neroli, ylang ylang, bergamot and sandalwood. So try one of these scents to infuse a little extra romance this Valentine's Day. Your partner will love it!

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[1] “New Evidence That The MHC Influences Odor Perception In Humans: A Study With 58 Southern Brazilian Students”, Pablo Sandro Carvalho Santos, Juliano Augusto Schinemann, Juarez Gabardo and Maria da Graça Bicalho, LIGH—Laboratório de Imunogenética e Histocompatibilidade, Departamento de Genética, Paraná, Brazil, February 2004

[2] “Birth Control Pills Affect Women’s Taste in Men,” Melinda Wenner, Scientific American, December 2008

Katy Perry to Scent Concert Tour

The sometimes outrageous pop star, Katy Perry, has announced that she is going to scent her 2011 California Dreams World Tour. The concert's theme will be along the lines of her California Girls video. According to the singer, the concert will smell "like you're in cotton candy heaven." Perry's concerts will be scented by our own ScentEvents. Way to go, Neal!

Perry's use of scent as part of her concert experience is sure to catch on with other performers.

Incorporating scent into live performances is a great way to further immerse the audience in the entertainment experience and connect with them on an emotional level.

Breathe Deeply and Relax

Between work and family obligations, traffic, difficult people, relationship challenges and environmental stresses, is it any wonder that people are anxious and stressed out? If your company provides a break from life’s hectic schedule, why not take it one step further and help your customers relax by infusing calming scents in your environment? Great places for relaxing fragrance include hotel lobbies and guest rooms, spas and salons, doctor’s offices, dentist’s offices, hospitals and retail stores. Here are some of the top scents for calming and relaxation:

Lavender – The scent of this purple flower has been used for centuries to calm anxiety, fight depression and enable restful sleep.

Bergamot – Derived from citrus fruit rind, this lovely scent is refreshing and uplifting.

Sandalwood – This woodsy scent comes from sandalwood trees that are at least 40 years old. It calms, relieves nervous tension and helps you relax.

Mandarin – Another citrus like the bergamot, mandarin is gentle and can help with sleep difficulties and lift your mood. Children, especially enjoy and benefit from this scent.

Jasmine – The heady scent of this white flower has been shown by German scientists to be just as effective in inducing sleep as prescription medications.

Use these scent alone or in combinations to create an atmosphere of calm and refreshed spirit.

Something Smells Healthy: Using Scent Technology for Wellness

Many scent marketers concentrate on pitching hotels and retail establishments because of the direct correlation between scent and a positive retail experience, including more time spent in the store or hotel and repeat business. But have you considered expanding your prospecting to medical establishments and other places where wellness is an issue? Hospitals, doctors’ offices, nursing homes and other healthcare facilities can benefit from using scent.

Anxiety Management

In one study at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, researchers administered either a vanilla scent in humidified air or non-scented humidified air to patients undergoing an MRI as part of a diagnostic workup for cancer. The study found that the administration of the scent produced a 63% drop in the patients’ anxiety levels.[1] In addition to diagnostic testing, there are a number of other medical situations where scent can be used to reduce patient anxiety, including before surgery, in dentist offices, in pediatricians’ offices and even hospital waiting rooms.

Immune System Support

Scientists at the University of Tokyo discovered that the fragrant compound linalool, found in sweet basil, thyme, cinnamon, citrus and mangoes not only works on the nervous system to produce a calming effect, but also positively impacts the immune system. Although the study used rats as subjects, scientists extend the results to apply to humans as well. Rats subjected to stress, when exposed to the linalool, showed no depression of their white blood cell counts, like the rats in the control group. In addition, the rats who inhaled the linalool scent had far fewer stress genes activated than the rats who were not exposed to the fragrance.[2] This study suggests that people who sniff linalool, which is commonly used in aromatherapy and as a fragrance in soaps, shampoos and other personal care products, can stay healthier.

Germ Killing

Some of the latest in scent technology has less to do with fragrance and more to do with killing bacteria, fungus spores and viruses. There are new products that can be used to completely sanitize the area, killing even resistant microbe strains like that responsible for staph infections. Staphylococcus is common in hospitals, and is incredibly hardy, having been found to survive on polyester (the fabric used for hospital privacy curtains) for almost three months[3]. Current precautions against this menace is swabbing beds, tables and other surfaces with an ethanol and ammonia blend, which has a strong unpleasant smell and fumes that are unhealthy for patients and sanitation workers to breathe.

So, expand your horizons and include healthcare facilities in your prospecting.

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[1] “Fragrance Administration to Reduce Anxiety During MR Imaging,” Redd WH, Manne SL, Peters B, Jacobsen PB, Schmidt H., Psychiatry Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, July-August 1994, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7949692

[2] Stress Repression in Restrained Rats by Linalool Inhalation and Gene Expression Profiling of Their Whole Blood Cells. J. Agric. Food Chem., 2009, 57 (12), pp 5480–5485 Akio Nakamura, Satoshi Fujiwara, Ichiro Matsumoto’ Keiko Abe

[3] Neely AN, Maley MP (February 2000). "Survival of enterococci and staphylococci on hospital fabrics and plastic". J. Clin. Microbiol. 38 (2): 724–6. PMID 10655374. PMC 86187.