Sensory marketing: A case of dollars and scents
If you ever have the feeling you’re getting led by the nose on a shopping trip, then maybe you really are.
Overseas, companies have been using scent to draw customers in for years.
It’s only starting to really catch on in New Zealand and one Palmerston North sleepwear store’s use of distinctive fragrances is ahead of the curve.
Peter Alexander burns a range of scented candles as customers browse.
Palmerston North store manager Kelly Duckworth said they burn a sample candle in the Plaza Shopping Centre store everyday,
‘‘It creates a beautiful sensory experience for our customers... That fragrance is instant the moment you walk in the door and it’s very specific to us.’’
Duckworth said people passing by can smell the candles and are drawn into the shop, some even came in just to smell samples of the other scented candles. ‘‘They are very effective. ‘‘We’re converting a lot of people to our brand, people who didn’t have an awareness of us before.’’
The candles helped bring people back to the store.
Some became regular customers who’d occasionally buy some more sleepwear while they were in to get a new candle, she said.
Massey University retail researcher Jonathan Elms said he didn’t know of any businesses in Manawatu that actively used scent marketing, but the technique was largely an extension of what store owners have done for years.
‘‘There’s all sorts of relatively cheap tricks of the trade [that] send a message to consumers, whether they realise it or not.’’
One example was how most supermarkets have an in-house bakery and smells of baking bread waft through much of the store.
Elms said that fresh bread was well known to make people feel hungrier and more likely to impulse buy food.
Air Aroma sales and marketing manager Roberta Gansen said New Zealand is behind the eight-ball when it comes to marketing brands through smell.
‘‘The New Zealand market has been neglected for a long time, but it’s definitely growing now,’’ Gansen said
Air Aroma has been in the field of scent marketing for 18 years – primarily working with brands in the US and China. It has a growing client base of hotels in New Zealand, but no retail clients.
Gansen said the firm created signature scents designed to invoke the feelings a client wanted customers to link to their brand.