Heineken pushing boundaries again this year at #heinekengreenroom. Enter The Scenthesizer. A premiere invite-only event, blending music with scent to create true sensory pleasure. Amazing working with Dean Chew of Darker than Wax to curate this trans-sensory rollercoaster or aural-come-olfactory pleasure. Big ups to the guys at Iris, FreeFlow and of course Heineken for creating this forum to bring the magic together. Looking forward to whats still to come….keep your eye balls peeled and your nose hairs reeled….be prepared to be blown away.
When I was in fourth grade, we had to come up with an invention. Sugar-obsessed, I created a bottle of scented air that would perfume a bakery with fresh-baked smells, such as chocolate chip cookies, enticing people to enter. At 10, I was big on ideas but short on financing and research.
Two decades and thousands of scents later, a company called ScentAir is using the same approach and has more than 2,000 scents in its library, from the obscure (dinosaur breath) to the delectable (caramel apple).
In addition to theme parks, retail stores and hotel chains, the company also has an unlikely client: a professional football team. That’s because the St. Louis Rams believe in the sweet smell of success.
“One of the first things we wanted to do here was to look at all the ways we can improve the game-day experience for families,” says Brian Killingsworth, vice president of marketing and brand strategy for the Rams. “We wanted to create a positive first impression for fans when they first walk into the stadium and we trigger their senses.”
After sampling more than 50 scents, including popcorn, waffle cones, caramel apples and sugar cookies, the Rams execs went with cotton candy (ScentAir’s official description of the aroma: “Warm, softly spun sugar notes with hints of raspberry”).
Now, cotton candy is the first thing fans smell as they arrive at the game.
The process is simple. The scent is pumped through the HVAC systems at the two main entrances at Edward Jones Dome. While ScentAir declined to share an exact price, a company official says its services range from $100 a month for a small storefront to thousands a month for a more complicated space. That price includes everything from the scent development and selection to delivery systems.
Killingsworth says the return on investment is hard to measure, but he believes the first year was successful. To his surprise, concessions sales went up — including cotton candy. It bodes well for the future of sports and scented air.
“This is something we hope to expand upon next year,” Killingsworth said. “I like the idea of using different scents in different areas of the building. The premium areas have different scents as well.”
On that note, I asked ScentAir about the possibility of pumping its “fresh, electronic smell” through my apartment full-time. They said that at the moment they only have “burnt wiring.”
“Next time you’re at a hotel, chain store, large concert venue, or casino, stop and take a big sniff. It’s not unlikely that you will smell a subtle, carefully concocted scent created by fragrance specialists at ScentAir, the nation’s largest scent marketing and branding company. Their olfactory potions have an obvious purpose: to encourage customers to linger longer and return more often.
But it isn’t all sugar and spice (and lemon balm and ocean mist). ScentAir’s scientists also recreate — and sell — the odors of feces, blood, guts, and even burning flesh, for use in medical and military simulation training.
A former Disney Imagineer, David Martin, is the brains behind the company. At Disney, he helped introduce the use of different smells to amusement parks; Disney first utilized them at special events, then expanded their use to its indoor rides, stores, and hotels.
“Disney creates the happiest place on earth by engaging all the senses and thinking of every level of detail. They are the masters,” ScentAir spokesperson Ed Burke told BuzzFeed. “We try to bring that to other types of businesses.”
ScentAir’s founder took his work to other amusement parks and entertainment venues; you can thank him for the dung smell at the dinosaur exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the Shrek fart on the Universal Studios ride, and the whiffs of cotton candy during Katy Perry’s 2011 tour. But he also found steady business bringing smell to stores, hotels, casinos, bars, and restaurants.”
Give it up for Mark Signorin, AKA ScentAir’s top smell guru (official title: “Director of Fragrance Development). Having personally worked with Mark over the last 5 some years, its great to see him basking in some limelight with this insightful career and industry montage by David Zax at FastCompany.com. We have worked together on the design of signature brand scents for some of the world’s leading brands and Mark’s skill and experience is unmatched in our industry.
On the topic of fragrance imaging for brands, Mark I’m glad you make the process sound so simple.
Coyishly he responds to Zax’ statement: “You’re the Don Draper of smell branding?” with a deprecatingly honest: “I have little vials of fragrance with blotter sticks. I start to describe the notes and how it works with the brand. I say, Let’s find the perfect fragrance for you: we’ll put a little…in …here to get some …, or some …. here to get some more…These types of discussions.”
These types of discussions? Mark – Fast Company just called you the Don Draper of Smell Branding!
Overall a well paced article covering Mark’s background and that of ScentAir, as well as some of our clients and case studies.
Smell The Love: How The Scent Of A Brand Creates Close Connections With Customers. BY DAVID ZAX | FEBRUARY 15, 2013. Your company shouldn’t just have a look and feel. It should have a smell, too, argues ScentAir’s Mark Signorin. http://www.fastcompany.com/3005833/innovation-agents/smell-brand
ION Orchard, Singapore’s premiere shopping mall destination once again delights shoppers and patrons with this scented art installation to commemorate Spring. Delicate and Delightful, what a way to stop and smell the roses! (in between shopping for a new pair of shoes!)
ION Orchard’s signature fragrance has had overwhelming positive response from the first day the mall opened. A big thanks to ION management and the Singaporean public at large for your support – AllSense
In another custom engineered project ScentAir has had the pleasure working on, McCormick spices up Digital Signage with scent-based game “Guess That Spice”.
The sense of smell is closely linked to memories and emotions, and scents have been shown to affect moods and influence behavior. Thanks to the intimate relationship between the brain’s olfactory bulb and amygdala, a simple scent can trigger an emotional reaction almost instantaneously — a connection that has not gone unnoticed by businesses and brands.
Retailers have dabbled with sensory triggers for some time, adding in-store scents that can lead to more lingering and ultimately more spending. But an interactive digital signage installation rolled out late last year by Intel, HP and 5thScreen Digital Services uses scent to take aim at providing a unique and memorable customer experience to engage consumers.
The McCormick World of Flavors, the McCormick spice company flagship store at the Baltimore Inner Harbour, features five interactive experiences, including the scent-based game “Guess That Spice” and “FlavorPrint,” which allows consumers to find spices to match their taste preferences. At Intel’s booth during the recent National Retail Federation BIG Show in New York City, attendees got a whiff of some of the new technology.
“Retailers are really trying to get you engaged in lots of different ways with their brands,” said Mary Murphy-Hoye, senior principal engineer for Intel. “So what McCormick has done is added a sensory aspect to their application where you can actually smell the different spices and learn about spices that you don’t know about. They are trying to introduce this idea of flavor and interest to the consumer in a new way, and to connect with [the consumer] in a more sensory way … a more personal way.”
In a marketing campaign for Unilever’s Shampoo Pinuk, ScentAir installed a custom fragrance delivery system to deliver the Shampoo Pinuk fragrance along the sidewalk beside the 394 foot long billboard. The billboard is located next to Ezriali Mall in the heart of Tel Aviv. The billboard is the largest outdoor fragrance project in the world with systems capable of covering over 110,000 square feet.
Our patented scent delivery systems are the key to putting the power of scent to work for your business.
Our scent delivery systems use a dry-air technology that releases fragrance without sprays, aerosols or heated oils.
Singapore
Malaysia
South
Africa
