Sales: Smell is a Powerful Sense - It Can Make You Buy

Company Website

Smell is a chemical sense tied to the emotional center of the brain. It a powerful sense, it can make us salivate, change our heart rate, attract us to a mate or stir our memories to the pleasurable times in our lives. Smell can also make us buy.

Scent Marketing is a growing trend in advertising. The power of scent is not fully understood but it has been applied with success to marketing virtually any type of product. Fragrance is as much a marketing tool these days as a logo and a jingle.

“Smell has a greater impact on purchasing than everything else combined,” says Alan Hirsch, neurological director of the Smell & Taste Treatment & Research Foundation in Chicago. “If something smells good, the product is perceived as good.” One theory, according to Hirsch, is that smells are linked with emotions. "The portion of the brain that controls smell is located in the limbic lobe, the center part of the brain that also controls emotions," he explains. "The quickest way to change emotions is with smell."

Through our patent pending product, better known as the CUA (Creative Urinal Advertising), the urinal becomes the perfect place to advertise with little to none, vandalism risk as the CUA hangs inside the urinal. Additionally, the CUA sanitizes, deodorizes, minimizes splash-back and keeps unwanted debris away from the drain. Also for the more restrained and/or old fashioned, you can go ad less without compromising any of the other benefits, either way instantly raising the appeal of any room as well as the establishment.

In restrooms where there are no urinals, we offer the CUA+. This product offers many of the same benefits of the CUA, and it can be equally enjoyed by both men and women. The CUA+ hangs on the wall, or it is placed in a stall. It sanitizes, deodorizes and gives you a place to advertise, and deliver your message in full color, together with a wonderful fragrance, on a beautiful weather and water resistant fabric.

Studies have shown that a scented environment leads to consumers staying longer, and spending more. A study of Las Vegas slot players showed they spent 45% more in a scented environment than those in an unscented one

The secret of scent is it can create a “flow state“, where one loses the normal sense of time and is totally consumed in the event. The flow state can last up to several minutes.
Some businesses have gone so far as to try to create a “scent brand” for themselves. The theory is that consumers will associate a scent with a particular brand so that the scent recalls the brand to the consumer. “Nothing is more memorable than smell," Diane Ackerman wrote in her book "A Natural History of the Senses.” "Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines."

Oftentimes injecting scent is more subversive. The Boston Globe recently ran an article about the discovery that kids are up to 350 percent more responsive to the five senses than adults, and especially to smell. Some companies are taking advantage of that by infusing their products with a smell that kids will recognize and enjoy. The idea being that a comforting smell will allure customers into buying those products infused with the smell from their childhood throughout their lives.

The sense of smell (or olfaction) is our most primitive sense and is located in the same part of our brain that effects emotions, memory, and creativity. Our sense of smell allows us to identify food, mates, and danger, as well as sensual pleasures like perfume and flowers/nature. Sudden scents, like smelling salts, will jolt the mind.

Since the olfactory system is located in the brain, the sense of smell is closely tied to memory, mood, stress, and concentration. For example, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, doctors use fragrance to reduce anxiety during medical testing. Doctors from Duke University Medical Center are treating women in menopause with fragrances to alleviate depression and mood swings. Scents used to affect mood or behavior is called aromatherapy.

Few ideal places that would benefit from CUA+:
• Near the entrance. First impressions are the most important. Delight your customers with a fresh fragrance as soon as they walk in. A fresh scent will make your clients feel welcome. It will also be the last thing they smell and remember when leaving.

• In dressing rooms. Over time, the smell of feet and body odor can permeate the carpet in the dressing rooms of clothing stores.

• Any public restroom. Especially in restaurants and food industry establishments. A client's appetite can be greatly influenced by their trip to the washroom prior to ordering.

• In waiting rooms. Odors can calm and relax. Bring a whole new atmosphere to dentist and doctor waiting rooms, or to a garage waiting room. Waiting is not enjoyable; a calming and soothing scent will help distract the patient/customer.
Anywhere unpleasant odors are unwanted.

Add a picture, logo, or message, and make it that much more enjoyable, memorable and powerful.