named Best Commercial project of 2009

CityCenter Las Vegas…the newest section of “desert gold” named Best Commercial project of 2009, the 18 million square foot complex has emerged replete with starchitecture, job opportunities and of course, the smell of success with ScentAir providing scent delivery technology in four of the five luxury resorts.

ScentAir’s presence is noticed immediately in the enormous spaces designed for spas, dining, shopping and residing. Each property destination has been fitted out with ScentAir’s HVAC technology (the ScentStream) to effectively disperse an exclusive  palette of custom created fragrance across their environments, delivering on the promise of a rewarding and engaging guest experience.

Aria Resort & Casino offers over 4,000 guestrooms, 16 restaurants, 10 bars and lounges, 300,000 square feet of meeting space and a full service spa. The fragrance they chose consists of sheer green florals below citrus notes and finishing with vanilla and musk.

Vdara Hotel & Residences greets its guests with a fresh green fig scent and hints of Cassis throughout its non-gaming, smoke-free property. Over 1,400 suites are available, in addition to a sparkling Sky Pool and cabana area.

Crystals Retail & Entertainment is home to an astonishing collection of the world’s most famous elite retailers. Wafting through the open space is a sophisticated green floral fragrance built upon the richness of amber & patchouli softened by notes of fine woods and musk.

Last, but certainly not least, is the majestic Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas. Long known for sincere service and luxurious amenities, the hotel’s crisp scent of citrus and melon notes are balanced by warm spices and myrrh.

Suzanne Robertson, ScentAir’s Gaming Development Manager in Las Vegas, has been working with marketing managers and creative directors since 2006, when CityCenter was just a pie-in-the sky concept. Her invaluable knowlege and influence were depended on heavily as the project took shape.

Other ScentAir Casino clients include City of Dreams (Macau), The Venetian and The Mandalay Bay

Strong and metallic – for NASA engineer and astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who is on board US space shuttle Discovery, that is what the final frontier smells like. “

There is one smell up here that is really unique though and that is the smell, we just call it ‘the smell of space’. “I haven’t had a chance to do a spacewalk yet … but when the other guys did and they came back in … there’s this really, really strong metallic smell. “It’s really cool.”

For rookie astronaut Kevin Ford, Discovery’s pilot, both the sounds and smells of space have surprised him. “It’s like … something I haven’t ever smelled before, but I’ll never forget it,” Space.com reported him saying.

“You know how those things stick with you.”

Read full piece at http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/smell-of-space-strong-metallic-and-unique-nasa-astronauts-say-20090907-fddm.html

At Bloomingdale’s, holiday planning starts in May, with Dennis Dunn (the store’s visual merchandising director) and his staff sitting around a conference room table sniffing scent samples. With the array narrowed down to about eight scents, the smells are then worked into the overall theme of visuals and, as each presentation is assembled, the ScentAir canisters are strategically hidden.

Dunn will change out the scents midway through the holiday season, “so it’s a constant, updated fresh scent which makes the whole experience different.” The Manhattan Bloomingdale’s is a tourist destination in its own right and there’s a need to “create theater,” Dunn says. “That’s what we’re known for. By the time customers get to the sixth floor where the Christmas shops are, they are mesmerized.” And, for many of them, they want to take it all home with them, including the scent. “We get asked so often…if they can buy it,” he says.

Customers wishing to purchase a form of marketing may be the highest praise. And that’s exactly why Conroy believes scent marketing is here for the long haul. “The adoption of scent as a legitimate form of communications has been proven and now accepted [and] I expect it to become more ubiquitous across retailing in the years to come.”

Cougar Scent for Men is a new cologne that, according to the manufacturer, has been scientifically designed to help younger men attract older women — particularly those women who are on the proactive “prowl” for younger men.

According to Marlon Williams, a senior product developer with ScentMark Industries, Cougar Scent was created over a four-year period with extensive testing at each stage of development.

ref: http://www.austinprobe.com/cougar-scent-for-men/

An urban definition of “cougar” is “a woman on the prowl for a younger man”.

SINGAPORE – Seated at the junction of Orchard and Paterson Roads, at the prime site of Singapore’s commercial and shopping artery, ION Orchard, the Orchard Turn retail-cum-luxury residential development, one of the most anticipated projects in Singapore, has opened.

A Shopaholic Fantasy- Laid out over 640,000 square feet of nett lettable space across eight floors, and with 335 shops, ION Orchard, will house a collection of global flagship and concept stores of both established and new to-market brands, covering the spectrum of fashion, lifestyle, entertainment and F&B.  Burberry, Dolce and Gabbana, Giorgio Armani, Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, are to name a few.

The mall will also be home to ten duplex flagship stores of some of Singapore’s most favourite international fashion brands. Six of these luxury brand duplex stores comprise a combined area of almost 50,000 square feet.

Speaking at a media preview of the mall’s opening, Ms Soon Su Lin, Chief Executive of Orchard Turn Developments, said: “Our vision for ION Orchard was to create an experience – an icon fitting of its unmatched location at the gateway to one of Asia’s most vibrant shopping strips. This vision has now become a reality, bringing a renewed freshness and energy to the surroundings.”

“True to the multisensory promise that the mall will offer; customized ION Orchard Signature scents have been created and will be subtly diffused throughout the mall…ensuring a complete and engaging experience to any visitor.”

“ION Orchard is committed to redefining the entire customer experience,” says Terry Jacobson, Managing Director of AllSense Pte Ltd. “An architectural masterpiece, it was a no-brainer they decided to extend the traditional paradigm of sight and sound into the realm of scent.  Our sense of smell has been long been overlooked as a decisive vehicle through which we as humans perceive and interpret the world around us, perhaps because it is so automatic. Our sense of smell is also the seat of our capacity for memory and emotion – it is on this note we promise ION Orchard shoppers a truly memorable experience!”

About CapitaLand Group (www.capitaland.com)
CapitaLand is one of Asia’s largest real estate companies. Headquartered and listed in Singapore, the multinational company’s core businesses in real estate, hospitality and real estate financial services are focused in growth cities in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

About Sun Hung Kai Properties (www.shkp.com)
Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) is one of largest developers in Asia, and its core business is in developing all types of projects both for sale and investment. The company has created some of the most memorable icons on the Hong Kong skyline, including International Finance Centre – currently the tallest building in the territory – and it is now developing International Commerce Centre, which will soon reign as the tallest structure in Hong Kong and the third tallest in the world.

About AllSense (www.allsense.com.sg)
With offices in Sydney, Australia and Singapore, AllSense is a pioneer in the creation, deployment and measurement of experiential media for brands and retailers.  AllSense partners with ScentAir Technologies Inc, a global presence in aroma marketing solutions and scent delivery systems. With over 20,000 proven commercial placements in 82 countries and generating over 1 billion scent impressons per year, household names like Westin, Sheraton, Jimmy Choo and Lucky Brand Jeans rely on ScentAir to deliver on the promise of a unique in-store experience for their clientele.

British Car Park operator NCP introduces novel scent strategy to engage parkers

In the aim for a better (read wackier) customer experience NCP are turning their previously pee scented stairwells into abmient scent zones. (http://www.ncp.co.uk/stairwellsmells)

“We’ve recently invested in some innovative technology that will allow us to make our stairwells smell,” says a wesbite spokesperson,
” however we want them to smell like roses, a bakery, roast chicken…. You name it – we can make a smell of it!”

And if thats not enough they are  giving you the opportunity ( well you if you live in and frequent their car parks in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Cardiff) to vote for your favourite scent, claiming to roll it out nationwide if it “proves popular enough”

“So to vote for the smell you’d most like our car park stairwells to smell of, please vote below, and when the poll ends, we promise to make that car park smell of roses. Or freshly baked bread. Or fruit. Or bubblegum…. You get the idea.”

“In a recent poll we carried out to test the water for Britain’s favourite smell, people voted in their droves for flowers, but we want to give you – our customers – the final decision on which whiff will win.”

Which city would you like to vote for?

Click here to vote for London
Click here to vote for Birmingham
Click here to vote for Cardiff
Click here to vote for Leeds

UK’s East Midlands Airport, located about an hour and a half north of London, serves about six million passengers a year. Two years ago the terminal underwent a major renovation that included upgrading shops and restaurants. But Sales and Marketing Manager Sarah Fletcher didn’t think upgrading the look of the facility was enough. She wanted the airport to smell better as well.

It wasn’t as if travelers were steering clear of the airport because it was stinky or anything like that. Fletcher says it
was just that, as the 2008 holiday season was approaching, the airport had run out of wall space to decorate or
use to communicate with passengers and the staff was intent on creating a pleasant ambience in the airport. “We
realized,” says Fletcher, “that one thing we could do was send Christmas up the passengers’ noses.”

To choose an appropriate aroma for the East Midlands airport, Fletcher and several staff members went shopping in ScentAir’s scent library. “I told them I was looking for a holiday smell to start people off on their journey. After a day of testing scents, we settled on a cinnamon/Christmas smell.”

Using special scent-diffusers, the scent was piped into the airport for the 2008 holiday season. Now the airport is
sending out a fresh scent for the spring and summer travel season that smells like coconut, almond and suntan oil.
“It’s really about the customer experience,” says Fletcher, “As people go through security it can be a difficult, stressful
experience. Now, as they walk through security, the smell relaxes them and puts them in the frame of mind that
this is where their holiday journey begins.”

It’s not just travelers setting off on their journeys who experience the scent program at East Midlands airport. The smell of chocolate chip cookies being baked wafts through the baggage claim area. “It’s subtle, not overpowering,” says Fletcher, “We’re hoping travelers will feel welcome and at home, but also a bit thirsty and hungry. Then they might fancy something to drink in our coffee shop. It’s a little bit crafty but it works.”

In the United States, ScentAir works with several U.S. airports and/or airlines in varying capacities. When working with airports, the company develops a signature fragrance that can be “delivered” at the check-in counters and in security areas. (For one international airline, a signature fragrance used in the gate areas and frequent-flier club areas is also spritzed
in the airplane cabins between flights.)

Other airports and other airlines might want to wake up and smell the terminals. Sarah Fletcher says this past winter retail sales figures at the East Midlands Airport matched those from the year before, despite the sagging economy. And while sales figures can’t be officially tied to the airport scent, a general feeling of well-being among travelers and employees might be. Lucy Hobson, a duty manager at the East Midlands Airport says while the airport used to smell “just like a building, nothing more,” the new, scented air seems to make both passengers and employees much more relaxed. “And that makes the airport a much better place to work and, overall, a more pleasant place for passengers.”

Credit -Harriet Baskas, USA Today

Buyology Book Cover

What we hear and what we smell are more powerful than what we see…Brand futurist Martin Lindstrom says as little as 50 years ago buying groceries was an experience that thoroughly stimulated all of the senses. Householders traipsed through the clatter and colour of vegetable markets and bought their meat in butcher shops that smelled of blood and sawdust.

“Now the shopping journey is not stimulating and the sensory experience is generic,” he says. “It’s like we totally forgot we are human beings and sales are going down because shoppers are incredibly bored.”

Lindstrom should know. The Danish-born marketing guru has spent three years and $7 million of advertisers’ money trying to understand why we buy what we buy. His latest book, Buyology, is a compelling account of a landmark study that used neuroscience to scan the brain for the “buy button”.

But what shocked Lindstrom most was that what we hear and what we smell are more powerful than what we see. That’s bad news for the 83 per cent of advertisers who create campaigns around visual appeal but good news for companies wanting to understand why 60 per cent of shoppers make decisions in less than four seconds.

“Using ordinary research techniques we learned that the most important sense was sight, then smell then sound,” Lindstrom says. “Now when we scanned the brain we found the most important is sound followed by smell and then sight.”

But what’s interesting is that our emotional brain overrides our rational brain when triggered by sound and smell.

Full article found at http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/lifematters/marketers-tap-into-our-biology-to-boost-sales/2009/03/25/1237656970050.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

and at:

http://www.theage.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/lifematters/the-hard-smell/2009/03/25/1237656970050.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

Credits:  Erin O’Dwyer – Marketers tap into our biology to boost sales – The Age (March 26/09)

JCDecaux has launched its first Australian ‘scent’ campaign for Fonterra Connoisseur Yoghurt. The JCDecaux scent boards have been placed in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to give consumers a chance to interact with the panels via a button which triggers a vanilla bean scent emission.

- credit: BandT magazine

http://www.bandt.com.au/