Scents Make Cents

Abercrombie & Fitch, the teen clothing store, has gone into the sense of smell with selling their clothes. It’s called “scent marketing”. The human brain can store up to 10,000 distinct smells and they are attached to certain memories. Abercrombie takes this idea and sprays their cologne, called “Fierce”, to project the image of a strong, confident teenager. The smell attracts consumers and keeps them in the store so that they spend more money. This was used in another study where they used the vanilla scent in stores for women. Today there are even companies like ScentAir that match scents to stores for sales.

The results from the studies showed that clothing sales doubled as compared to without the smell. This makes sense (pun intended) because the smell adds to what producers want their consumers to become. If they buy more of the product then they can be closer to whatever image the store is. It is also the first thing that captures an audience, since they are not always looking at advertisements. Restaurants do this all the time. If the food smells good, people will go in. There are also more elements that could be further researched, such as the music played in the store and what colors they use in their advertising. Next time you go to a store, really look around. What does their scent remind you of? What image are they projecting?

Sources:

1. Khan, Hymayun. “How Retailers Manipulate Sight, Smell, and Sound to Trigger Purchase Behavior in Consumers.” Gender-congruent Ambient Scent Influences on Approach and Avoidance Behaviors in a Retail Store. Shopify, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.
2. Spangenberg, Erick R. “Gender-congruent Ambient Scent Influences on Approach and Avoidance Behaviors in a Retail Store.” ScienceDirect. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.