THE NOSE KNOWS BEST
November 5, 2004

Who knew that there was a company that produced scents for the retail environment. This ain't your momma's can of Renuzit spray, but a whole new concept in luring potential customers to purchase products like chocolate, citrus, furniture, candy, and more. As many gay men know, smell plays a HUGE part in our lives. We love the scent of masculinity and the aroma of sex (or a sale at the Banana Republic store). When we're not thinking with head #1 or head #2, the nose knows where to go.

Some clients of this new field pioneered by ScentAir range from the BI-LO grocery store chain, to your local 7-11 convenience shop on the corner. Universal Studios Orlando uses the product to up sale candy (at $5 a pop I bet). Kroger grocery stores uses ScentAir to entice shoppers to buy "freshly" made baked goods. It's a good concept, but will it fly?

It's particularly remini'scent' of the childhood favorite movie "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" where nothing is quite as it seems. Just because you smell leather at the furniture store, doesn't mean the leather actually smells like that. The scent machine is just another "experience maker" brought to the one sense marketers target the least -- smell. Daily, we are bombarded with ads in many forms, usually through sound or sight. It only makes 'scents' that smell should be next to be used in selling techniques. Marketers have even embarked on the infamous Smell-O-Vision to reach the consumer in homes across the country via television. With the Smell-O-Vision, you would be able to watch shows like "Six Feet Under" and get a good whiff of rotting corpses and formaldehyde. Better yet, you could tune into "Fear Factor" and test your own limits as contestants eat horse manure and rotting worms. Yummy. Another innovation coming along the pike may be an iSmell unit, acting much like a printer, but producing smells activated by your computer instead of paperwork. Don't hold your breath (or your nose) for that one though. The manufacturer went out of business. I wonder if their investors could smell the end coming?

However, I have a few business niches that I am sure the good people at ScentAir have failed to reach. Should they need some business, ScentAir could make a killing by marketing pheromones to dance clubs around the world... or to porn arcades. Better yet, sell smells kids hate (like steamed vegetables) to places you don't want kids to be shopping or frequenting. How about selling the smell of money to banks (so people don't feel as poor when they leave), or sell the smell of fresh cut grass to hardware stores? Unfortunately, there aren't any scents that scare Mormons or bill collectors from your door, so future testing maybe needed.