AROMA’S MEMORY LINGERS
SCENT BRANDING HAS BECOME A $300-MILLION INDUSTRY
I’m battling my way through the pungent masses of Times Square in August when I’m suddenly transported: a cliff jump into a turquoise cove, fiery sunsets from a hotel balcony, fire-twirlers beneath the stars. The vivid memories flash rapidly through my mind, stopping me in my tracks. The trigger? The scent of lemon grass drifting from the windows of a Thai restaurant.
The nose, it turns out, is the fastest way to the heart. And hotels these days have caught the scent, commissioning signature fragrances that they hope will transport guests long after their stays.
You may think you understand the world primarily through sight or sound, but your sense of smell is the only one that comes fully developed at birth. It remains the primary way children define the world until the age of 10, at which point, finally, sight takes over.
According to Mandarin Oriental’s branding specialists, hotel guests remember what they smell two times longer and more vividly than what they see or hear. Scent branding firm 12.29, founded by sisters Dawn and Samantha Goldworm, likes to quote a similar statistic that after three months, a person can recall a smell with 65 per cent accuracy, in contrast to only 50 per cent for visuals.
Scent memories are persistent and ingrained. For brands, they provide a powerful tool to build emotional loyalty, feeding an estimated $300-million scent-branding industry, say industry experts.
“You don’t viscerally experience a logo the way you experience a scent,” said Caroline Fabrigas, chief executive officer of Scent Marketing.
“Custom scents are expensive,” continued Fabrigas, “but if you think about the amount of money a brand will use to create a logo, this is just another form of it — and it’s one of the most powerful.”
In the case of 12.29, which has worked with such luxury brands as Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, Valentino and Thompson Hotels, the firm asks extensive questions about whom the brand is speaking to and what it wants to say. Are they talking to 25- to 35-year-olds who work in tech and go to Soul Cycle and are mostly North American? Or are they same-aged Japanese hipsters who dress in selvage denim and obsess over rare whiskies?
Beyond formalizing the audience, questions of effect come into play. Should the scent balance comfort with a quiet sexiness? Does it need to be energizing or calming? Should it be playful or seductive? Or both?
In developing a scent for the Viceroy New York, the Goldworm sisters recently set forth to capture the black leather, dark woods, and gilded highlights of the interior design, embodying the contrast between comfortable textures and the energy and excitement of Manhattan.
“The scent uses deep woody notes and fir balsam — a kind of earthy, leathery, and comfortable but still very chic scent,” said Samantha. There’s also some cassis, “which is a deep red berry note that’s very bright but also very juicy and addictive.”
The final part of the equation after a scent is formulated is nailing the right delivery method. Blowing a traditional perfume into the air would involve alcohol, to which some guests could be allergic. Using only candles makes for uneven scenting. Using heat means you can lose the depth of a fragrance.
Air Aroma, which has scented the Four Seasons Chicago, SLS Hotels, and the Sofitel brand, uses a system known as “cold air diffusion,” by which cool air pushes the scented oil through a nebulizer (similar to what hospitals use to administer medication in the form of a mist), creating a micro-fine vapour that remains suspended in the air. They hook these diffusion machines up to a hotel’s HVAC system. The result? Subtle, even, and continuous scenting.
Other hotels take it a step farther, incorporating the scent into linen sprays in guest rooms, cool towels by the pool, diffusers in the lighting, and even on business cards, postcards, and candles. To spread a scent developed for New York’s Quin Hotel, 12.29 created notecards with invisible capsules that release the signature scent as you write on them.
“A good scent enhances the wood that you’re standing on, the stone on the wall. It’s almost as if the environment is breathing with you,” said Fabrigas. “It becomes intrinsic to the space.”