Is It A Memory or Just Eau De Brand?

Luxury hotels and resorts present an opportunity for one to indulge in some of the highest quality sensory experiences from impeccable design, to amazing food and personalized services where you feel like royalty. Most recently top dollar resorts and hotels are adding another weapon to their arsenals to aid in creating a memorable experience for guests that has them wanting more the moment they leave. This secret weapon is a carefully crafted custom scent being piped into hotel lobbies and surrounding areas. Yes, you heard that right brands are developing their very own scents in an effort to create a positive memory in consumer’s minds, a memory that pervades all senses.

This latest effort to create a memory using the power of consumers’ own sensory experience and subconscious is part of a marketing practice called Neuromarketing (Senior & Lee, 2007). It utilizes neuroscientifc methods, such as fMRI and EEG scans, to help analyze and understand human behavior in relation to markets and marketing interactions (Senior & Lee, 2007; The Lancet Neurology, 2004). It’s basically using brain imaging technology to help answer the question Gerald Zaltman posed in his book How Customer Think, which is why do customer say they want a product but don’t buy it? (Zaltman 2003; The Lancet Neurology, 2004). Like Neuromarketing, Zaltman set out to understand how a customer’s buying decisions is influenced by the convergences of multiple interactions at once between the mind, body, brain, and society (Zaltman, 2003).

In his research, Zaltman found that some basic assumptions marketers were making about their customers were turning out to be false. For example, he found most marketers think consumers think in linear ways, or that their memories accurately reflect their experiences (Zaltman, 2003). He and other neuromarketing researchers have found that once a smell is embedded in a person’s brain just seeing visual cues related to that memory can be enough of a trigger to “resurrect” the scent (Dooley, 2007; Zaltman, 2003).

Just think of the last time a strong or distinct smell triggered a memory to come back to you, chances are it was a pretty vivid memory. This is the exact effect companies are trying elicit with their brand scent. The goal is to create a positive emotional connection that stays in consumer’s minds even when they are not directly interacting with the brand.

The power of the nose doesn’t just extend to luxury hotels and resorts; many traditional retailers are taking advantage of Neuromarketing through scent. Companies are building scent into their branding approach to forge a deeper emotional connection with their customers, for example Thomas Pink stores are scented with the smell of line-dried linen (Dooley, 2007). However, it’s important that companies use this technique judiciously and in the right context. You wouldn’t want to walk into walk into a car dealership expecting that “new car smell” and get a nose full of an overpowering flower bouquet instead. Thankfully there are many specialty marketing firms positioning themselves as “scent technologists” that can help brands craft the perfect scent and memory for even the most discerning customers (Duncan-Durst, 2007).

Sources:

Dooley, R. (2007). Does your marketing smell? Neurosceincemarketing.com. Retrieved July 05, 2012, from http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/does- your-marketing-smell.htm.

Duncan-Durst, L. (2007). Scent branding: Smell of success? MarketingProfs.com. Retrieved July 05, 2012, from http://www.marketingprofs.com/7/duncan9.asp

The Lancet Neurology. (2004). Neuromarketing: Beyond branding. The Lancet Neurology, 3(2), 71. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(03)00643-4

Senior, C., Lee, N. (2008). A manifesto for neuromarketing science. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 7(4- 5), 1479-1838. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cb.250

Zaltman, G. (2003) How customers think: Essential insights into the mind of the market. Audio-Tech Business Book Summaries. Retrieved July 06, 2012, from http://mma6.v4vmedia.com/Courses/6BrandManagement/ebooks/How%20custo mers%20think.pdf.