Why scent may be the purest form of neuromarketing and at the same time one of the most misunderstood.
There are some subjects that everyone intuitively agrees on, yet the evidence always seems to lag slightly behind. Scent is one of them. Every marketer senses that it works. Every consumer recognises its effect. We have all walked into a shop and thought: something about this place just feels right. And often, that ‘something’ is not what you see, but what you smell.
And yet, when you open the average marketing study, scent tends to disappear somewhere near the bottom of the page. A secondary consideration. A way to enhance atmosphere. Something for hotels and luxury retail, perhaps, but not something on which to base serious decisions.
That is strange, to say the least. Because if there is one sense with remarkably direct access to behaviour, it is smell.
Freshly baked bread and a good cup of coffee
Walk into a supermarket just as fresh bread is coming out of the oven. Or into a coffee shop where the beans have just been ground. Nobody needs to explain what happens. You slow down. You start looking around differently. You feel hungry, even if you have just eaten.
What is interesting is not that it works, but how naturally it works. Nobody is trying to sell you anything. There is no argument, no persuasion and no message. Just a direct connection between scent and behaviour.
A classic, but still relevant, example is the ‘lemon and students’ experiment. Researchers introduced a subtle citrus scent, which we strongly associate with cleaning products and freshness. Afterwards, participants were faster at recognising cleaning-related words. During a subsequent task, they were also more likely to wipe crumbs from the table – without realising that the scent might have had anything to do with their behaviour.
Scent therefore influences not only perception – this feels clean – but also behaviour – I start cleaning.
Freshly baked bread, fresh coffee and citrus scents may be some of the purest examples of System 1 activation: little reflection, mostly reaction. And, importantly, often without conscious awareness. Without intention. Without someone being able to explain exactly why an environment, brand or product suddenly feels different.
From a neurological perspective, this also makes sense. Olfactory information reaches areas involved in emotion, memory and valuation at an early stage of processing. As a result, a scent can make something feel appealing, familiar or unpleasant before we are even able to identify exactly what we are smelling.
That does not necessarily make scent more powerful, but it does make it more direct. Less corrected. Less rationalised. And that is precisely what makes it so interesting.
Scent as part of the customer journey
Recent studies suggest that scent can add value throughout much of the customer journey. Even at home, when opening a parcel, we appear to be sensitive to it. An appropriate scent inside packaging can contribute to a more positive product evaluation and stronger brand associations. Some studies have also found increased willingness to reorder the product or pay more for it.
Of course, that does not mean you can simply spray some perfume into a box and sit back. The scent has to fit. The product. The brand. The moment at which someone encounters it. A pleasant scent that makes no sense in context may actually create confusion. That makes the unboxing moment particularly interesting. Expectation, ownership and reward all come together. You have been waiting for something, you open the packaging and physically encounter the product for the first time. Scent can become part of that exact moment. Not as an isolated addition, but as part of the experience.
Scent and fluency
Another important insight from scent research is that scent works particularly well when it feels right.
For example, Spangenberg, Grohmann and Sprott showed that an ambient scent is evaluated more positively when it fits the context and target audience. A luxurious perfume scent may enhance perceptions of quality in an exclusive shop, but could feel out of place or even inauthentic in a discount retailer such as Action or Kruidvat.
Mitchell, Kahn and Knasko also found that the congruence between scent and product influences the way consumers process information and make choices. The smell of leather in a car dealership, for example, may reinforce associations with newness and quality. A scent reminiscent of sun cream in a travel agency could activate memories and desires associated with holidays.
Not necessarily as a conscious thought, but as a feeling that things simply fit together. Or, when the scent does not fit, as a sense of friction.
In research, this is described as congruence: the extent to which different elements of an experience are meaningfully aligned. When scent, product, environment and brand all tell the same story, the experience becomes easier to process. This is known as fluency. And things that are easier to process often feel more familiar and more positive. Conversely, a scent that does not fit its surroundings can create doubt or even avoidance.
Over the years, numerous studies have investigated the influence of scent in marketing environments. Spangenberg, Crowley and Henderson showed as early as 1996 that a pleasant ambient scent can influence how consumers evaluate a shop and how much time they believe they have spent there. Morrin and Ratneshwar later found that ambient scent can also improve attention to and memory of brands.
Bosmans subsequently demonstrated that it is not only the pleasantness of a scent that matters, but especially the meaning that scent acquires within a particular context. A scent that matches the product can strengthen its evaluation, while the same scent in another context may have little effect or may even have the opposite effect.
Product scent itself also plays a role. Krishna, Lwin and Morrin found that a scent directly associated with a product can strengthen memory of that product. Particularly when scent becomes part of the product experience itself, its effects on memory may last longer than those of a scent that is merely present in the surrounding environment.
And last but not least, neuroimaging studies using fMRI show that scent can activate emotional networks strongly and rapidly compared with visual stimuli.
The overall pattern across these studies is consistent: scent does not simply determine behaviour directly, but shapes the context in which decisions are made by systematically influencing time perception, evaluations and associations.
Investing in an olfactometer
As more marketers recognise that we should not rely solely on what people say, but also measure what happens in their brains, Neurensics has taken the next step towards making the effects of scent measurable.
With the acquisition of an olfactometer – a system that can deliver scents in a controlled manner – we can now integrate scent into fMRI research.
What does that mean in practice?
- Different scents can be tested individually or in combination, in sets of six
- Fully controlled timing, accurate to milliseconds
- A direct link between scent exposure and brain activity
- Measurement of underlying emotions through our 13 neural dimensions
- Comparison of scent, visual stimuli and the interaction between the two
In other words: where scent once literally and figuratively ‘hung in the air’, we can now make it experimentally controllable and predictable.
This opens up an entirely new field of questions:
- Which scent increases purchase intention?
- Which scent strengthens brand associations?
- Which scent activates the emotions we want consumers to experience?
- Which scent has the opposite effect?
- How does scent interact with design, packaging or communication?
Scent may be the purest form of neuromarketing and, at the same time, one of the most underestimated variables in marketing effectiveness.
And perhaps that is no coincidence. Scent cannot easily be captured in questionnaires, dashboards or post-rationalisations. It operates where much of marketing is still blind: beneath the surface.
So come and experiment with us. Because the brands that first understand how scent influences behaviour can build an advantage that is not easily copied.
Experience the scent of success
Scent may be the purest form of neuromarketing and, at the same time, one of the most underestimated variables in marketing effectiveness, largely because it has been difficult to measure.
Until now.
With the acquisition of an olfactometer, Neurensics is bringing scent into the marketing research domain. With NeuroScent™, we use fMRI to test and measure how different scents affect emotion, valuation and purchase intention.
You smell a scent. Its meaning is created in your brain.
Want to know more?
Discover how we use neuroscience to predict the impact of your content, helping you go beyond simply capturing visual attention: neuromarketing research at Neurensics.
