Scent branding is far more than merely using air fresheners. It’s about creating a positive customer experience through the use of strategically chosen or crafted scents that are diffused at key customer touchpoints in a coordinated effort to create a distinctive olfactory brand experience.
A successful scent branding campaign will lead customers to associate positive feelings, emotions and memories with your brand in powerful ways. This is because the olfactory centre in the human brain is closely linked to the memory centre, which helps customers to link smells with recollections of their experience with you.
When there is a memorable scent, brand recognition and recall is strengthened. Conversely, when there is no noticeable smell at all, the memory of your brand is weakened.
Foul odours will sour otherwise positive memories, whereas pleasing aromas can help smooth over a negative experience when recalled. Either way, scents can evoke strong memory responses in individuals ‒ better to evoke a pleasing one than an unpleasant one.
It Makes Your Product Or Service Seem Of Higher Value
Somehow, when customers are around your brand and they smell something pleasing, they associate it with better quality. Perhaps this has something to do with a deeply ingrained instinct for determining good quality food from something rotten and potentially dangerous. If food smells good, we know it’s good to eat and safe.
It’s also similar to how our brains process information regarding romantic partners. For example, if they smell bad, it’s a warning of ill health or something similar, whereas a good scent is attractive.
Quality smells good ‒ it’s just that simple.
Make Customers Hang Around Longer
The fact that people will linger for longer where things smell good is no wonder. Horrid odours chase people away because they signify something potentially dangerous or harmful to one’s health. It’s a basic instinct.
However, as repulsive as bad smells are, pleasing scents are attractive. Wherever there is a pleasing smell, people are more likely to want to stay for longer. It sends signals to the brain that the environment is comfortable, safe and filled with the promise of something good and rewarding.
Being in such a pleasant environment is also likely to improve one’s mood. And when a customer is in a good mood, they’re much more likely to spend money.
For more information on how scent branding can benefit your business, contact Scent.ology today!
